Katy: Morgan, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here today.

Morgan: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited.

Katy: You’ve interviewed so many people in this field, experts and people with lived experience with eating disorders. What’s the biggest thing you now know that you either didn’t realize or hadn’t thought about that way when you started?

Morgan: Through interviewing over 450 people globally, the biggest thing I’ve realized is how siloed the field is. I think that’s true of society in general right now: we’re less community-driven and more working in silos, in an epidemic of loneliness, and I’ve seen that within the field too. Researchers should collaborate more, because collaboration builds community, and community creates conversation, which can translate to answers. I wasn’t looking for that finding, but it became clear the more people I talked to: we don’t really talk to each other. You can learn a lot from one another.

Katy: Why do you think that is, why are people so siloed, with those collaborations not happening?

Morgan: A few reasons. Generationally, we’re in a culture of social media, optimizing, chasing followers, a more competitive nature exists now. When the field first started, it was very collaborative. Pioneers like Beth McGilley, Carolyn Costin, and Michael Berrett founded the field and worked hard together, and accomplished a lot because of it. But once the Mental Health Parity Act came in and private equity started buying up treatment centers, the conversation shifted toward profit, and more competitiveness came with that. It mirrors our culture now: getting more followers, more likes, only one winner. A healthy dose of competitiveness is fine, but when you lose the community piece, loneliness follows.

Katy: That makes so much sense. Was there anything else from these interviews that really surprised you?

Morgan: With people who have lived experience, and this is grim, but I’ll say it, many who unfortunately passed away had started out wanting to get better, advocating for themselves, choosing to go to treatment. But because of how insurance treats eating disorders, they were denied the length of care they needed, which interfered with their recovery. And now they’re not here. That really surprised me.

Also, we spend so much time focused on why we got sick, but not enough on how did you get better, what’s your story of resilience. There’s nothing wrong with sharing your story of what happened, but I want to hear more stories of resilience than stories of getting sick.

Katy: Totally. When I started this podcast, I did a lot of interviews with people about their turning point in recovery, what helped them. Those stories are so powerful.

Morgan: Right, and a lot of people have gotten better, but we don’t talk about that. It’s important to ask people how they did it. The answer is right in front of us, regardless of the money or lack of money in research, just ask the people who recovered how they did it.

Katy: People often ask me if it’s possible to make peace with food or your body, or recover from an eating disorder, and my answer is always: absolutely.

Morgan: Carolyn Costin talks a lot about that in her work. There need to be more conversations, more role models, around that.

Katy: Why do you think eating disorders are still so misunderstood today, even with more data and more conversation than in the past?

Morgan: If any other illness were progressively worsening and affecting kids as young as eight, it would be all over the media. But eating disorders aren’t part of that conversation, even though we’ve made progress on other mental health topics. I think it’s partly because we live in a diet culture that praises a certain look and ties it to a person’s worth.

One story that stood out to me: a woman went to treatment for an eating disorder, had a hard transition home, later became an alcoholic, went to AA, and came home again. People treated her return from AA more gently, more respectful, not expecting her to instantly be “better.” When she came home from eating disorder treatment, people just assumed she was better. Residential treatment stops the behaviors for the time being, it doesn’t mean you’re better once you’re home.

Katy: I’d argue that’s when the real healing begins, when you’re back in real life trying to do recovery there. It’s so different from treatment.

Morgan: Treatment wasn’t easy either, but coming home puts more responsibility and accountability on you. And when you’ve been sick, you don’t always have your own best interest at heart, so having to engage with something three to six times a day, when you can’t just abstain from food the way you might with alcohol, is uniquely hard.

Katy: There’s no simplicity like abstinence with something like alcohol or another substance.

Katy: If you could erase one common misconception about eating disorders, what would it be?

Morgan: That it’s just about looking good, a vanity issue. It’s not that at all.

Katy: What would you say it’s about instead?

Morgan: I don’t think there’s one common theme. Some would say it’s about control, but I think it means something different to everyone who has one, people don’t get an eating disorder for the same reason. It often stems from trauma, but not always.

Personally, when I was in school in the ’90s, I had a learning disability, and no one was talking about mental health or neurodiversity then. I wasn’t even told my own diagnosis until later; I found out I had ADHD and dyslexia. I had a 504 plan, an IEP, an aide. I felt othered in the classroom. Kids and teachers called me stupid. The only compliment I got was “you’re pretty,” so I thought, okay, I can’t be the smart one, but I can be that. I watched my peers thrive while everything was hard for me, and it took a toll on my self-esteem. For me, the eating disorder wasn’t really about being thin, it became about wanting to disappear because I felt like everyone was noticing me for the wrong reasons.

Katy: That’s such a good example of how nuanced and different this can be for everyone. If you’re told “you’re pretty,” it’s like that becomes your worth.

Morgan: All I ever wanted was to be seen as intelligent. I found out later in life that I am, but when you’re in school and intelligence is measured a certain way and you don’t meet that bar, you feel like an outsider. I still can barely take a test. It was especially hard at a time when no one was talking about neurodiversity at all.

Katy: Growing up, I didn’t even hear the term ADHD until I was a teenager, and it was mostly framed as something that happened to hyperactive boys, not girls.

Morgan: Right, my hyperactivity showed up more as anxiety; that was just my temperament. It’s interesting that the stereotype of anorexia is the straight-A, perfectionist student. I’ve joked that I couldn’t be a perfectionist if I tried, I just wanted to be average. If I aimed for perfect, I’d only be disappointed.

Katy: A lot of us could use some of that “aim for average” energy.

Katy: Since you interviewed both people with lived experience and experts, were there things the experts disagreed on?

Morgan: It’s interesting, some researchers are certain their answer (a therapy modality, a medication) is the answer. But people with lived experience rarely credit a specific modality. The only one I heard mentioned by name repeatedly was DBT. Ask someone how they got better, and it’s rarely “FBT three times a week.” It’s more about being listened to, feeling respected.

Katy: Right, a good therapist might be doing CBT or somatic work, but the person isn’t necessarily framing it that way. They’d say “my therapist listened to me,” not “my therapist performed great CBT.”

Katy: So what did people who got better say actually helped them?

Morgan: I think eating disorders are deeply intertwined with identity, and finding an identity outside the disorder is incredibly healing. People who found identity and purpose beyond the illness seemed to thrive more than those who didn’t.

I’ve never liked the framing of just “getting rid of” the illness, you don’t necessarily know why it’s there. It could be serving a purpose even while it’s damaging. There can be real strengths tied to it: drive, ambition, goal orientation. It’s like reassigning people to new roles in a struggling company rather than firing everyone.

Katy: How do we channel those traits in a positive direction?

Morgan: Exactly. Coming at someone and saying “we’re going to get rid of this” doesn’t feel collaborative, it’s been there a while; it’s not going anywhere overnight.

Katy: Sometimes there are real, important reasons someone has an eating disorder, and those need to be acknowledged and understood. Michael Berrett once said at a conference that sometimes people need their eating disorder to get through something worse, and we need to respect that, even have gratitude for how it’s helped someone. That reframe stuck with me.

Morgan: Right, for some, it can be a response to trauma like sexual assault; it numbs you, or it’s a way of not wanting to be seen a certain way, as a form of protection. It’s a survival skill. People don’t usually think of it that way, they think someone just wants to look like a model, but there are often deeper reasons behind how sick someone becomes.

Katy: What did people with lived experience wish their families, or professionals, understood better?

Morgan: These are frustrating, confusing illnesses for families. It can look like the person is just being difficult or defiant, but there’s a healthy self that’s sometimes hard to access. Seeing someone go from healthy to unwell, or having been well before, makes it confusing, “why can’t you do this now, you did it before?” There’s not much understanding of what it actually feels like, physiologically, I remember feeling like my body was a different size than it really was. Or feeling like I’d get sick if I ate. It looks like defiance, but it’s not.

Katy: That’s hard for people who’ve never experienced it to grasp, why can’t you just eat the meal? It’s not that simple.

Morgan: You’d never tell an alcoholic or drug addict to “just stop,” that would be frowned upon. There’s debate about whether eating disorders are technically addictions, but functionally it’s similar. Yet people feel comfortable telling someone to “just stop,” or giving unsolicited food advice.

Katy: I see that culturally too, everyone on social media thinks they’re a food and nutrition expert.

Morgan: If I want accounting advice, I go to an accountant with a certificate on the wall. But with food, people go to “Bob’s Budgets,” some random guy at the gym, instead of a registered dietitian.

Katy: And the least qualified people online often seem the most convicted, which makes them more believable. People with real expertise are more nuanced, “it depends on the person,” which isn’t as exciting to say on social media.

Morgan: We live in uncertain times, and people crave certainty. If “Joe from Orange Theory” says only eat chicken cutlets, that becomes the answer.

Katy: We often blame social media for body image and eating issues. What’s your take, how much is social media really the problem?

Morgan: Both yes and no. It can share stories and give people access to information and validation they didn’t have before, like realizing you might have an undiagnosed condition after hearing someone else’s story. But we also live in a highlight-reel culture, which is especially hard for kids. I’m grateful I didn’t grow up with social media, bullying used to end when you went home; now it’s constant, and you find out about being excluded from things in real time instead of after the fact.

Katy: What about AI, how do you see it impacting body image, health, and nutrition?

Morgan: There are more mental health apps now, which lowers barriers to care and improves access, that’s a positive. But there’s a constant tension between quality and quantity, and it’s largely unregulated. Someone can alter your image, place you somewhere you’ve never been, or exploit it, and there’s no real oversight. I’ve heard of teenagers using AI to learn disordered eating behaviors, which is dangerous and unflagged.

Katy: It’s like how magazines used to be photoshopped and we sort of knew that, but it still had a negative effect. Now with AI, the images were never real to begin with, the line between reality and fantasy is even more blurred. Someone recently told me she used a plastic surgery site’s AI tool to preview surgery results on her own photo, it’s this relentless pressure to keep “improving” toward whatever ideal is being sold to us.

Morgan: I’m not opposed to plastic surgery, people can do what they want with their bodies, but it’s interesting how the conversation shifted. When I was growing up (I’m 33), accusing a woman of having had plastic surgery was an insult. Now it’s normalized, even something people flaunt.

Katy: And it’s worth asking who profits from that becoming normalized, tracing where the money goes.

Morgan: A lot of people make a lot of money off of us not liking ourselves.

Katy: And with AI, it’s like you said, a bot could actively encourage disordered behaviors, similar to old pro-ana or pro-mia websites, but even more disturbing.

Morgan: Back in the Tumblr days, that content existed too, one of the contributing factors to my own struggles, actually, but at least the computer was usually shared, in a living room, with your family around. Now it’s in your pocket, private, accessible all the time.

Katy: What about the flip side, the positives, like connecting with people who’ve had similar experiences, or helpful recovery apps? Since technology isn’t going away, how do we use it productively rather than framing it as simply “bad”?

Morgan: I wouldn’t have spoken to 450 people around the world without social media and AI. I’ve had the privilege of connecting with people in Korea, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, even across language barriers, through translation tools. That wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and there’s real power in that.

Katy: We wouldn’t be having this conversation right now either. I know wellness culture and how it’s marketed is something you’re passionate about. Where’s the line between actual wellness and disordered behavior dressed up as wellness?

Morgan: When I speak at schools, I ask kids what they’ve seen on social media that is or isn’t helpful, and the most common answer for “not helpful” is elaborate wellness routines from 18-to-20-year-olds. Wellness is individual, a walk on the beach helps one person, blasting music in the car helps another, but it’s become an optimization and consumer culture: supplements, red light therapy, cold plunges, and college students are all doing it. When I was in college, no one was cold-plunging before class. These aren’t bad habits on their own, but the pressure that you have to do them to be accepted is the problem.

Katy: It’s actually reassuring that teenagers and college students can see through that and call it out to you.

Morgan: When we were in college, it was fine to be a little irresponsible and have funny stories. Now there’s so much pressure to look and behave a certain way that people are missing out on that. It’s a little grim, but at someone’s funeral, no one’s giving a speech about their wellness routine, they talk about getting lost in the car together, laughing until you couldn’t stop. Those ordinary moments are actually the big ones.

Katy: Easy to miss when you’re busy obsessing over calories or your workout routine. What made you decide this needed to become a documentary?

Morgan: Honestly, it started because I got angry. I went to residential treatment at 19 and turned 20 there, and I was fortunate to get a significant amount of care. I watched other people cycle in and out of treatment because of insurance issues that never really got addressed publicly. You’d hear someone’s “war story,” but never “what does your life look like now?” I kept hearing that eating disorders are underfunded and under-researched, but no one explained why.

I have a background in film and television. After treatment, I did an internship at NBC, no one there knew about my past, and rebuilding my identity outside of being sick felt freeing. I didn’t want to become a clinician, but I could use my film background, inspired by things like the Me Too movement and how media can spark conversations that lead to change. It started with me just asking people, “I have a story, do you have one?” That’s how it snowballed into founding my nonprofit.

Katy: Where are things at now, and when can people watch it?

Morgan: We’re in the funding phase. We have a minute-45 trailer going up on align33media.org in August, which will anchor our fundraising strategy. We’re also launching a series on Substack called The Roundtable, three or four clinicians in conversation, hosted by my executive producer of storytelling, Robin Schumer, like a Hollywood roundtable, but about community and learning from each other. That launches late July into August. The goal is putting out real stories people can resonate with and feel less alone.

Katy: We’ll link all of that in the show notes so people can check it out and support if they’re able.

Morgan: I’d appreciate that, I see it as a community project.

Katy: We need more resources like this. The field learned the hard way that education framed as “here’s how to be sick” does harm, we need newer material that’s hope- and healing-oriented.

Morgan: Agreed. It comes back to telling your story responsibly. I don’t think it’s especially impactful to focus on lowest weights or specific behaviors. What matters is that you got treatment and relied on community, that’s significant enough on its own. You don’t have to prove how bad it got. I also want to hear how you came back from it.

Katy: Where’s the best place for people to connect with you?

Morgan: align33media.org, my personal Instagram (Morgan Maxwell DiPrimo), and our Substack, Align 33 Media, Morgan Maxwell.

Katy: I can vouch for the Substack, I’ve been following it. Thank you so much for being here, Morgan.

Morgan: Thank you so much.

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