barfing is a way to avoid (some of) the ill effects.

says more about her, than about Prescott. I suppose the pro-ana mia crowd don't want this fashion accessory polluted by the thought of an old, fat, man infringing on this particular victim chic society. Hey Prescott, don't you know, cool diseases are restricted to girls. Why don't you go become an alcoholic, pedophile, womanizer or wife-abuser. That would better fit our expectations. It would make it much easier to justifably hate you.

We certainly don't wanna feel empathy for you. I mean, yeah, you are "the man" and all.

Just curious... do you actually HAVE any sympathy for this guy, or are you just using him to make a point about percieved stereotypes of eating disorders?

I read Ms. Harding's post and the articles she links to. Between the deliberately "misunderstood" quotes, the eye-rolling (imagined or real) and the comments about whom she'd rather not know, it became clear, at least to me, that Ms. Harding should look in the mirror before passing judgment as to another's ability to choose the appropriate response among, "sympathy, suspicion or ridicule."

Why call him out as old and fat in the header? Is this how we show sympathy to people now? Harding sounds like a real jerk in this post. Not at all cute.

I hope he gets the care he needs, both medical and psychiatric, and finds a supportive group that will accept him.

On a related subject: male breast cancer. A friend recently found a lump in his breast. I'm only thankful that he thought to check. Being a realistic sort (and having listened to female friends), he made an appointment with a doctor immediately. He e-mailed me and told me about it. A woman of his age would have known precisely what a mammogram was and the procedure he'd be going through. He didn't. So I explained it, and I explained the way the decisions could go. The lump was benign, but he isn't out of the woods yet.

These sorts of conditions should not be neglected. They're not funny or weird; they're life-threatening. And yes, I thought so before my friend told me he had a problem.

Decent people don't laugh at other people's illnesses.

re-read the third paragraph, particularly the last clause:

"But now John Prescott has gone and threatened to wreck that image and reveal something much more complex: that 10 percent of diagnosed bulimics and 20 percent of new cases are men; that a compulsion to throw up your food isn't just about weight control, and most bulimics are not underweight; that these disorders aren't restricted to kids who will eventually grow out of it; and that **bulimia is not a personal weakness but a dangerous mental illness.**"

Are you offering the third paragraph as evidence of Ms. Harding's sympathy or ability to approach this topic with nuance?

If so, here's "professional weirdo" Uri Geller's quote in its entirety:

"No one expects a man, especially a successful one, to have an eating disorder," he writes in the Telegraph. "It seems such a weakness. But addiction isn't weak: it's as powerful as a landslide, and it was burying me alive."

Of course this doesn't let her segue as snarkily into the third paragraph and spell out the misogyny she perceived in Geller's quote. It also shows, without explicitly stating, most, if not all of the points/observations you quote in your post. At least that's what I took away from her post and the two articles.

She was pointing out that he was the opposite of the stereotype of bulemia, which is young, thin, female. Instead he's old, fat, and male. Old and fat are not insults, they are descriptive words. They don't mean he's better or worse than anyone else anymore than if he were short, tall, or British.

I particularly object to thinking that calling someone old is an insult. I'm not there yet, but I hope to be someday; and I hope people recognize that and don't waffle with such silliness as "senior".

I don't know if you realize how judgemental you seem, but this post sounded very hostile. I think that he felt like this was a weakness for himself because one would assume that a middle aged, powerful man would have more "self control" than a teen-age girl. Most people who have any kind of a mental illness feel that it is at least parly because of personal weakness. It's very hard to accept that something is wrong with your behaviour and you can't control it yourself. This is part of what makes treatment so difficult. It can be especially hard for successful people to admit (even to themselves) that they have a mental illness. I don't think that this means that people see young women with anorexia as a "scrawny, attention-seeking teenage girls" and the solution is to "send a tough guy in to demand that she eat normally and quit barfing". I think that most people, especially those who suffer from mental illnesses, recognize that the feelings of guilt are just part of the disease and must be dealt with in treatment. I admire these men for coming forward.

I blog about body image and eating disorders on a regular basis, and when I use the word "fat," I don't mean to imply any negative connotations. As a fat person myself and a body acceptance activist, I advocate reclaiming the word for what it is: a simple adjective that describes someone with more adipose tissue than average. I don't believe it should be any more morally charged than a "tall" or "brown-haired."

In general parlance, though, it IS loaded with negative connotations, of course--and since Broadsheet readers don't necessarily know where I'm coming from, I can totally see how my use of the word "fat" could seem like I was mocking Prescott. I'm sorry about that. I absolutely did not intend to insult Prescott--and if it's really not clear, I have tremendous sympathy for him. I'm glad that he seems to be recovering well, and I'm grateful that he's brought a new face to eating disorders and expanded many people's understanding of whom they affect.

Also, to the first letter-writer, bulimia is, in fact, binging and purging by definition. Binging without purging is a separate disorder (Binge Eating Disorder).