In the subscribers list for her academic YouTube channel I noticed that she’s following Megsy Recovery - her name kind of says what you’d assume, which is that she talks about ED recovery.
As someone in recovery, who has very strong opinions on the toxicity of the “recovery community”, snd is one of the rare people I actually follow because she is very real about it. Nothing is romanticised but she’s also never triggering (I highly recommend!)
But back to Ruby - the fact she follows Meg is just… bizarre? Well, bizarre if you’re not in recovery/struggling with an ED yourself. From reading boons on EDs to following others with EDs, that can’t all just be “academic interest” as I think Ruby or her fans once cited.
Basically, I find it almost impossibly to believe that Ruby is not struggling with an ED, and this makes two aspects of her content so deeply troubling: body checking and food content. If you know you are struggling with an ED, and have a large audience, both of those things are just NOT OKAY.
If she isn’t willing or ready to seek help, or simply be transparent about her struggles withher audience, she must stop sharing this content. It is so so damaging.
Disclaimer: as someone who’s struggled with an ED, I would be the first to acknowledge that getting help/talking about it is very difficult. I therefore stress that I am not critiquing Ruby for this. what I am critiquing is the content she shares. It makes her no better than Emily Canham/Eugenia Cooney.
Finally, I am curious if she follows Jessie Paege? As Jessie has openly acknowledged her past struggles with an ED now and how she denied it to herself for a long time. The thing with Ruby is - she isn’t in that total denial stage, because she is following this content. She KNOWS there is an issue and that is what I can’t forgive.