Anna Archer “Fitness”

[dinosaurbestie]

literally made an account just to post this, i always lurk on these threads lol. how fucked up is this to say to someone? yes, eds do often come up as a trauma response but a) not always and b) why are you deflecting from the harm you have caused? just seems like she doesnt want to take responsibility? when will she take down her old posts where shes clearly ill?

 

[babykalechip]

She's reading this thread btw. She left a snarky comment saying that she doesn't live in her parents' garden when someone asked where she lives now, and someone earlier on this thread said that it looks like she lives in her parents' garden.

This is for Anna:

I've seen you liking a bunch of comments on Tik Tok that say your "haterz" are just jealous of you. You also removed my comment on Tik Tok criticizing you that many people agreed with. Here's what your "haterz" actually think.

1. When you started your Tik Tok you said you were eating 1000-1300 calories a day. Not only did you promote this just by explaining how it worked for you, you also released loads of recipes instructing people to eat the "right foods" (the lowest calorie foods possible, filling up on water/fiber to lose weight) to lose weight.

2. You were called out for mentioning you didn't have a period. You shamed your followers and gaslighted us, making us seem like we were the crazy ones for inquiring why you lost your cycle. You said it was weird and gross that we'd ask something so personal. Reproductive health isn't gross, Anna. It's actually essential for bone health in women, and losing your period can cause so many issues beyond just infertility.

3. You said weightlifting made you bulky, and eating the wrong foods. You actually told 1m followers that you were BULKY before. How is that productive?? It's 2021. Let's stop shaming women who have muscle for looking "manly." Muscular "bulky" women are actually FIT and STRONG, and that is beautiful. This isn't the early 2000s anymore.

4. While you were binging and purging, you were STILL promoting the diet and recipes that got you into that horrible cycle. Shame on you.

5. You got lots of brand deals from your fame. You promoted all these products to your audience for your coin.

6. You promote a pseudoscientific, fake therapist on your IG.

7. You give advice on how to use OCD-like behaviors to stop intrusive thoughts. Banging on your chest with your fists is NOT a coping method for having intrusive thoughts or anxious thoughts.

8. You slunk back to your social media after ~7 weeks away to make some more money off your audience. You promote stupid Manuka honey brands and show variations of watery veggies and oats and call it "intuitive eating" to "nourish" your body.

You are the biggest hypocrite I've ever seen. You're losing followers not because you stopped giving weight loss advice like you said on Tik Tok, but because people are sick of your games. So many fitness influencers have overcome an ED and trauma and kept their following--because they're GOOD PEOPLE who are genuine and honest.

What sickens me most is that you keep all your old videos of "what I eat in a day" that's around 1000 calories up for your audience. Anyone can scroll back and follow the advice that caused you to go through periods of binge/restricting/purging, but it's worth it, right, because they can lose weight??

 

[lisayan]

Im sorry but this forum did NOT pass the vibe check

... bc of course we should be vibing with promoting ED behaviors to an impressionable following and the refusal to take responsibility for the harm it may cause

 

[babykalechip]

Old me:
-restricting calories
-looking at nutrition labels constantly
-feeling guilty for eating

New me:
-eating vegan
-looking at nutrition labels for ingredients
-feeling guilty for eating animals

This is what her caption should have been on her newest post^

 

[babykalechip]

[TW - mention of ED behaviors]

Obviously Anna isn't posting as much recently, so there's not much to say, but I was thinking about this situation today and I wanted to share my thoughts again. As I mentioned earlier, I unfollowed Anna, but I looked at her Tik Tok/Instagram today to see what she's posting.

I feel like the general consensus on this thread is that we applaud Anna for recognizing her disordered eating, and for getting help and reaching out to her support system, but we condone that she still has all her old disordered content online for people to consume and possibly mimic.

One person who I've followed for a while is Jessie Paege. She came out a few years ago saying that she had anorexia, and she documented a lot of her recovery journey. Now most of her social media content is geared toward eating disorder recovery and mental health advocacy, and although she's branching out of that, she spent a TON of energy on that sort of content when she first "came out" about her ED. She shared her story, how her YouTube affected her with having people's opinions of her body on her constantly, and she apologized so much for her impact because she said she realized people were using her sick body as thinspo.

I am really upset that Anna hasn't shared her true story. I know, I know. She made a few videos about it. But...not really! I want to know what motivated Anna to start posting her before/after pics. I want to know what her mindset was when she made these 200 calorie recipes and publicized them. I want to know about how Tik Tok affected her mental health. I want to know her take on the fitness industry, and whether she thinks that it was toxic to begin with that Gymshark descended on her as a sponsor as soon as she had low body fat.

Anna has the chance to share her story--her real story--and to make peace with an audience that she hurt more than she helped. But, she isn't. Instead she chooses every day to ignore a lot of these real, raw issues, and keep everything surface-level.

I think this is why Anna bothers me so much. I usually rarely post anything online about people, and I've never left a "hate" comment on someone's content before this.

I guess my "hate" for Anna's content comes from the place that I used to admire her. I was going through a breakup around the time that she was, and I saw her as absolute goals. I followed her recipes and when I began to binge eat because I wasn't satisfied on those meals, I criticized myself so harshly for it. I would look at Anna and wonder why my willpower was so low.

When Anna said that she was binging around the time that I was, it just hurt me so badly. I never purged because I have a fear of throwing up. But I couldn't help but think "ohhh, if I was purging I'd look like Anna did, too." I'm a 22 year old young woman, mind you. I'm not a teenager. But I was still having these toxic, disordered thoughts in response to Anna's content.

I do not look like Anna did when she was being promoted for being so fit. I run ~25 miles/week and I am constantly going on walks around my neighborhood to stay active. I feel very healthy, and I'm the fittest I've ever been. But I haven't lost any weight from getting fit. Actually, I gained some weight, because I'm eating more and trying to sustain the energy to work out more. I am a size 4-6, a small/medium depending on the clothing size, but because I basically have Anna's exact body pre-weight-loss, I hated myself for this.

I listened to Anna's advice and I became unhealthier for it. I know I'm not the only one who has a story like this. What scares me most is that many of her followers are younger than me--teenage/preteen girls who probably experienced similar ED behaviors following Anna's advice.

I hate that Anna has this public platform that actually harmed so many people, and now she is not apologizing sincerely to me and the other people who were sucked into her delusion. I inadvertently followed the advice that led to Anna developing bulimia, and that scares me so badly. I still struggle with overeating/undereating now, and this all began around the time I began following Anna's recipes.

I'm sorry for the long rant, but I just feel so hurt over this, still. I know this thread is less active, but I just wish Anna would realize the damage she's done to real people like me and so many others.

 

[jeffegg82]

Anna is so brave for showing her unposed photos on her story where she still has perfect abs, a completely flat stomach and no visible imperfections. I truly don't know what the world would do without her bravery she should be given a medal

 

[babykalechip]

This is going to be a bit of a rant, but I need to talk about this somewhere.

When you have an ED your idea of reality can be warped. Sometimes you can't see what you look like physically in the mirror, but sometimes your thoughts are just out of touch with reality, too. Maybe you're thinking about how everyone around you is judging what you're eating when that's not the case, etc. There's a lot of ways you start to get wrapped up in your head with an ED and it's different for everyone.

But when you recover you work with professionals to reattach your mind to reality. You work to see your body in a more "real" sense--maybe not in a positive mindset, but at least neutral. You work to adjust your thoughts about your self worth and food and all sorts of things.

But then you can get triggered in recovery, and I think that the most triggering things for people with an ED are when you get thrown into a doubting loop and you can't tell exactly what's "real" again. I am going to argue that Anna's delusions about fitness and food are super triggering to me because they honestly make me doubt what's real regarding health sometimes, and I bet they do the same for other people.

1. Anna lost a lot of weight through hard-core calorie restriction, but she said she wasn't restricting much at all and was eating to be fully satisfied. So which is it? People gained faith in her for promoting a healthy diet and then it turned out to be starvation. So can you look like Anna did if you're not starving? She justifies starvation for people who admired her physique before, and confuses so many people about whether it's appropriate to track macros and calories. So the reality gets distorted.

2. Anna was throwing up, and her nights of eating "fun foods" and vlogging her vacation foods were really binges. So if we eat those foods, are we binging? Is it binging when you don't track calories? Were Anna's regular foods not "fun" because if not her diet wasn't very balanced, was it? So the reality gets distorted.

3. Anna said she is in recovery. But her recovery doesn't involve professionals. Her therapist is not a therapist. Is she seeing a real therapist? Does recovery require therapy? Do you have to talk to professionals, or not? So the reality gets distorted.

4. Now Anna is losing weight again, but "intuitively"? Is this normal for everyone in recovery? Would this happen for us if we recovered from an ED? Is she restricting again? Why does she only wear revealing outfits at a lower body weight? Reality once again is distorted.

I know this is just super repetitive but I am so triggered by Anna these days that I don't even follow her any more, because I started to seriously question my reality regarding food/body image/fitness after hearing all Anna's BS and lies. I just can't stand that she is taking her vulnerable audience along for this ride when she has NO IDEA what she is doing. Her pseudo-authority on this subject is seriously damaging.

 

[yourmumyourmum]

how can she have done a pt qualification and not know how to deadlift ??? everything she says confuses me hahahaha what

 

[lisayan]

:/

 

[toni]

this trip is just giving me arbua 2.0 all she’s doing is posting high protein foods with no carbs and going to the gym everyday with a group of gym obsessed lads like ??? didn't she say that trip was hell and this just seems like a repeat of that

 

[so_u_thinkimskinnyyy]

So triggering

i cant

 

[mel7845]

she then says ‘i wanna train properly’ aren’t you a PT with a fitness account and a gymshark sponsorship? shouldn’t you know what you’re doing?!

She says she needs a trainer for support. Girl, you don't need a fitness trainer. You need a therapist, a psychologist, a nutritionist, a dietician for the ACTUAL help and support.

 

[babykalechip]

Honestly I'm someone who thought that she never needed to lose weight from the start of her journey. I've followed lots of fitness influencers for the past ~6 years or so, and most of them have gained weight from their original weight loss because it's very common for people to get into "fitness" and go down an unhealthy/disordered route with it. Gaining some weight back can be just as healthy toward finding equilibrium as losing weight can be for other people.

Anna was gorgeous before she lost weight. She unfortunately got attention for losing weight since we live in a super weight-focused society, and she obviously associated a lot of new opportunities and positive things with that weight loss.

Maintaining it must have been so stressful, and I imagine she's even more stressed now at the idea of coming back if she has gained weight, because in that case people will want an explanation. I personally don't think she owes anyone an explanation of her weight if she gained.

It seems like Anna might be suffering from an ED, so I think we should all be very careful about our comments on her actual appearance in this thread.

 

[ghooddayinmymind]

Omg as if she was going on yesterday about “not doing cardio anymore” and now she’s come out saying she’s been running every day this week and not even eating before... this girl needs to delete her account fr

 

[jeffegg82]

She called her ex out for putting her on a 1200 calorie diet, but she won't take accountability for telling hundreds of thousands of people to do the same thing. This girl desperately needs a brain

 

[Quueen;)2401]

i assume a lot of people on this thread have had an eating disorder, myself included. So it’s very striking how it’s only been a month or two of her in recovery and she’s already saying how amazing and transforming it’s been etc. Like doesn’t it take an average of 5 years to recover from an ED? I worry that she’s now put the label of ‘recovering’ onto herself and will feel pressured to be the most perfect and aesthetic recovery account where you’re finding your true self and flourishing and nourishing your body when in fact it isn’t like that, at all I think she should step away from socials, actuslly recover first and THEN show what helped. Not showing what currently helps but may not be attainable, like she did before with her fitness content 🥲

 

[coffeegal]

Idk why but I feel like the injury was made up to prevent having to do a gymshark post working out in their gym and that was the only thing she could think of to get out of doing that maybe or according to her contract? And maybe she didn’t wanna do the gymshark gym workout content as it would be showing her body and she was scared as it wouldn’t have been the same as the previous content she’s done there? Idk tho as she could have wore the baggy clothing like she did before at the normal gym so take this theory with a pinch of salt ahha. I feel like she’s not coping with her body the way she makes out. I hope she can be more transparent with such struggles to her audience as that would really help SO many girls including myself

 

[Dxmon]

Wtf who the fuck writes ’either way you would of struggled with this’ TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY

yes Anna may not have single handedly caused this girls ED but she was a dam big influence. Own up and delete everything triggering from your account. Those videos are still easily accessible to so many people who are looking for diet advice.

I can’t believe I followed her workout plan and Diet advice for a period of time

 

[lesleybanks]

i cant

omg. just because she suffers more with the ‘eating side’ of things, doesn’t mean it’s ok to over exercise and promote it too.

the problem is as well, now she’s promoting herself as a recovery account, therefore those in recovery will follow and hope her account is a safe space for non triggering content but instead she posts highly triggering things like this and promotes awful behaviours. i really hope no one looks at her content and thinks this is the correct way to recover. i wish she would just delete her account, she has never promoted anything helpful or non harmful.

 

[lesleybanks]

the way she had lost her period and was still giving out tips and telling girls how to lose weight knowing it wasn’t right