It’s common for mainstream culture – with its lack of diverse faces, identities, and bodies – to influence people to develop obsessive thinking about diet and exercise. We see celebrities over the decades morph their bodies with plastic surgery and high-end, expensive diets and workout plans that the average person only dreams of affording. Visibility, however, is most often given to cisgender, heterosexual people who can fit the ideal: so where is the LGBTQ+ community in all of this?

There’s a common saying in eating disorder recovery: “Body image comes last.” Many ED survivors find they have a much easier time learning how to eat consistently and use new coping skills than learning to appreciate their bodies.