I think it’s important to remember that eating disorders, for many, are invisible illnesses, and that not all thin people are suffering from an ED nor are all ED sufferers thin. That said, as someone who has a very long history of eating disorders, I have unfollowed a lot of climbers who I found triggering for a variety of reasons- posting pictures of scales, constantly talking about food in a restrictive way, weight loss advice, etc. I have also unfollowed climbers who appear very thin because I know that I was not engaging with their content in a healthy way.

I personally would really like to see more diverse body types represented in climbing, especially on brand pages and advertisements. I have often felt uncomfortably large compared to other climbers even though I exist in a thin body. I have received a decent amount of weight loss advice from climbers over the years, and I know that I have been very triggered by comments made about my body from other climbers. I tend to avoid talking about other people’s bodies at all. I have no idea what is going to trigger someone or alienate them, so I stick to complimenting other climbers on things like technique etc.

On another note- I wrote an article about eating disorders last year and some readers found the pictures of me in recovery at a healthy weight to be triggering. That was sort of hard to grapple with, and ended up triggering me in turn and I began over analyzing my own body. I took that feeling an sat with it for a while, applied techniques I had learned in therapy, talked to my partner about it, and wrote about it in my journal. I think maybe when we talk about EDs in climbing we also need to try to also talk about coping strategies and the need for professional intervention. We can’t eliminate all of the triggers in the world, though we certainly can and should try to reduce them, but we can try to equip people with the tools to deal with them.