there is a non-negligible number of people who turn to veganism primarily in connection to disordered eating (mostly young women, as they're the primary demographic for eating disorders to begin with)
when I was deep in the eating disorder "recovery" community on Tumblr in ~2015, virtually every single blogger I saw on there was vegan. photo after photo of plates of cut up fruit & veg. meats, eggs, and dairy, often being high-calorie, were "fear foods".
of course, the brain post-rationalizes and draws up new connections, so on the surface it wasn't as simple as "high calorie, do not want". not that I'm saying there aren't good reasons to go vegan (there are plenty), but when the *entirety* of a demographic is vegan, it's sus.
more than just believing that eating animal products is wrong, the disordered brain warps "right/wrong" into "clean/dirty". I witnessed this happening to myself first-hand — before I even consciously decided to go vegan, I started feeling "gross" when eating animal products.
to someone unfamiliar w/ disordered eating, this might not seem all that weird — after all, if someone has truly deeply held ethical convictions, it's only natural they would start feeling gross for betraying them, right? if someone believes animals have souls, feel pain, etc.
but it pattern matches *way* too closely to how other foods are seen by the disordered brain. I suspect that there's a similar reason you see so many gluten-free eaters among those w/ eating disorders, too — bread is scary and therefore becomes truly deeply felt as "gross"
so, there was a problem when these girls would go to eating disorder treatment centers (think of rehab, but like... for eating disorders). the vast majority of the time, the staff would not allow them to stay vegan. they were given food to eat, and that included animal products.
of course, none of them were happy about this, and neither were their followers. this was cruel & unethical, they claimed, almost downright oppressive. back then I mostly agreed with them — after all, it's perfectly easy (yes, it is) to eat a nutritious, high-calorie vegan diet.
I don't really have any specific ending to this thread, just: those associations can indeed be broken, and while the morality/cleanliness trap can be quite the deep hellhole to claw your way through, it's doable. and it feels way better to come out on the other side. ✌️
and then you spend a good chunk of money on fancy cheeses and gorge yourself and remember just how much you always loved goat cheese (among other kinds of cheese) 🧀
the end.
it's not like being vegan would help them restrict more, I figured, since they were observed at mealtimes. but now I see it differently. the staff weren't just trying to force-feed them a high-calorie diet — they were also trying to break unhealthy associations in the brain.