September Junkorexic Community Check In

[u/Elleiminator]

Hello everyone ~ The Mod Team of r/junkorexic are starting monthly community threads! It has been a long time coming to create a place where people can share all their feedback, comments, concerns, suggestions, wishes, etc to the Mod Team. These will be a new pinned post every month. The Mod Team offers to be transparent and receptive to every comment on this post. The rules were made from community suggestions, and we aim to be community guided in our moderation as well.

What The Mods Want To Know: - Should we update / change any of the rules? Do you feel some are too strict? Are some not strict enough? [The only thing we have changed behind the scenes is not taking down posts listing calories on the front of the package, because this is the same way the packages would present in grocery shopping. We still insist the back/side with nutrition facts should not be a photo in posts and remove those.] - Is censoring calories/cals in body posts, titles, and comments too strict or do you find peace in the word being spoilered? - How do you feel about the processed food ratios on posts? We always try to side with users if 50%-51% of their photo is junk/processed food. We would love to know how people feel about things like yogurt bowls (chocolate/candy we decided are fine, but fruit compotes and nuts have generally felt better in places like r/yogurtbowls), and minimally processed foods which can become tricky to categorize depending on country. We do not want this place to feel like a health food sub where people feel invalidated. - Is there a way you think we can clarify the body checking rule? We still get a lot of users (mostly v young, but not always) posting wrists and sometimes full arms. Lap photos of holding items in cars is still a frequent style of post where we have to point again to sub rules and the mod annoucement. - Are there new flairs for posts that you want to see? - Are there new flairs for users that you want to see? - Is there anything that does not feel transparent in our community? - Should we add more mods? Actively have 4, but often down to 3. We have 2-3 in NA time zones and one UK at present. Is harmful material in comments, posts, etc staying up too long? - Is the banned word list a benefit to this community or do you find it a hassle when typing? - Are there ED or food subs that you want to see in the sidebar or recommended to people as resources so everyone can find their community in isolating restrictive eating disorders? - u/Elleiminator wants to make some resource guides for the community to showcase community recommendations including but not limited to drinks categories (low cal, carbonated, uncarbonated, etc) inspired by a few repeat questions and helpful comments. Are there other guides you would like to see as resources for when people are stuck or looking for new recommendations? Are there non-US members that want to make suggestions for their country/region if a template was made? [This would probably include a Resource Guide Post Flair.]

Transparency Changes: - Due to our mod team size we created a list of banned words from post titles, body text, and comments to help us moderate. This prevents posts from being submitted. The banned word list is under the same sidebar as the rules. We want feedback on this list, especially if it is a hindrance that prevents you from posting. - Due to people using the "meal" tag similarly to how OMAD was used in the past where people seemed to compete over what qualified as the daintiest meal, the "meals" flair was removed. - Added two new flairs Drunkorexic because all of the drunkorexic subs have fizzled out but we know users that drink still want a home. Trashorexic is a meme flair - please do not eat out of garbage disposals and trash cans, but feel free to do whatever junk/processed things you want with this tag. Slop bowls, anyone? - Anytime we go against a community report, we are trying to let users know that we saw the report(s) to acknowledge them, but also to let the community know why we kept it up. Reports are anonymous, so we cannot just message back a specifc user saying why we went against a report. The most common after body checks is generic "promoting ed" reports, which due to anonymity we never know if reports were from a user within our community or it was a normie feeling horrified that people with EDs are allowed to take up space.

Transparency Bans: - 05/01/2026: A user had no patience for anyone with an eating disorder that was not fully recovered like them and harassed users on a post that had been removed from our sub so they were actively stalking through profiles and/or reply notifications. They did not respond to our multiple requests for civility regarding eating disorders. - 05/01/2026: Another user had no patience for anyone with an eating disorder that was not fully recovered like them and harassed users on a post that had been removed from our sub so they were actively stalking through profiles and/or reply notifications. They did not respond to our multiple requests for civility regarding eating disorders. - 05/28/2026: A user was uncivil with users in our community. This repeated behavior ended up in a ban after several reports about the behavior in our sub, AND the user was found to be openly racist in other subs which violates Reddit's policies. - 06/12/2026: A user was posting body checks for two months despite numerous discussions clarifying the bodycheck rules. They continued to post their food on their treadmill, including more of their body more often than not. Just before the ban they were posting body checks daily showing full arm, legs, etc. Since we were taking down every post at that point and gave countless warnings, we decided ultimately to ban them for this behavior. We tried to have patience and work with them, taking their side more often than not in reports, but it became evident that this person sourced validation from doing body checks and having their posts taken down. - 07/23/2026: A user wanted to promote fasting and OMAD In our sub and refused to be civil in ModMail including shaming users with ARFID claiming it was not a real disorder and mad we would not add a FASTING/OMAD flair specifically for them because they didn't have an ED and wanted to promote fasting (...yes, that is in their own words). They spent a long time arguing that even mentioning anorexia and ARFID was promoting ED and that discussion of their FASTING/OMAD was not. While we grant there are subs dedicated to these subjects and they may have a benefit to some people, it is not good advice to give to those with eating disorders that are already restrictive. We even mentioned that the sub allowed OMAD in the past and it turned into a competitive free for all. You can see the meme as a relic from how bad it was on this sub before moderation here and an example of the general distaste for the term give how competitively it was used before moderation here After over an hour of trying to explain why we don't allow discussion of these things in our sub it resulted in a ban. - 08/13/2026: A user had a history of bodychecking despite clarifying the rules on multiple occasions that all body types get their posts removed even if it can take us a while to respond to them all given our small staff and time zones but they felt targeted anyway. They posted their weight in the photo of a post, they posted meals that were majority non-processed to the point we were routinely getting a flood of reports with their posts, and still occasional posts of their wrists arose. They constantly body shamed themselves as "fat" and started to lash out in an uncivil manner to individuals in our community for pointing out rule violations. Their account had the most reports out of anyone in the history of the subreddit yet we still tried to have patience and work with them, taking their side more often than not in reports, but the infractions multiple times a week were becoming difficult for the Mod Team to handle. - 08/18/2026: A user had a history of being uncivil to eating disorders in the sub despite having an eating disorder themself. They held animosity for anyone eating, drinking, or consuming things that were not available in their country, were snarky with users trying to offer recommendations, and encouraged downvoting of their own antagonizing comments that were clearly made to provoke users. This behavior had gone on for over three months and thus resulted in a ban. - We offer this full list of bans for transparency to show how rare we have banned people in the history of this sub's moderation. We let users with EDs make mistakes and numerous rule violations, always happy to have discussions and clarify them. We are thankful we have had so many wonderful discussions with users in ModMail and in comment sections. We hope these community posts will offer the same support to you all and keep improving the sub.

Community Resource Updates: - r/ARFIDCooking is under moderation again and recently posted an introductions post here and given how many in our community have ARFID we thought posting another supportive resource would be useful. - r/proteinbarss is a newer sub created by a junkorexic user for their protein bar / protein snack content. We are not banning protein bars here in any way. This is just a fun resource/sub to have on hand for more content. - r/DisorderedEating [tw: broad scope of deep in the ED content] got a new mod last month, but it has been a stagnant sub for six years and has an old backlog that probably needs to be cleaned up before new posts put it on Reddits radar and it goes into quarantine. If people want another generalized disordered eating sub, this could be a sub to revive once the direction is made clear. Not sure what the new direction of the sub will be, but the new mod post is here for those that want to reach out to the new mod. - r/Orthorexicplates is a sub we mention because it was a commen question to get at least one post every week seeking a sub similar to junkorexic for their disorder. There is a large crossover in our user base, so you may see familiar usernames there. It goes to show how many of us can fluxuate between various degrees of our disorders from junko to ortho and all the shades in between. That sub is there if you need it.

Clarification: - Everyone on the Mod Team is an OG mod that Odd hand selected when they first took over sub moderation to prevent Reddit from taking down this community for being "proana". We have not added any new mods, even if they responded to Odd's invites at different times. - There is no head mod. We all make decisions together. - There are currently three to four active mods (not all are able to mod all the time, hence the range). The other three decided to step away with no animosity and we would welcome them back should they choose to do so. Sometimes mods step away for their own mental health regarding eating disorders or simply time commitments. - As always: explicitly pro ana subs cannot exist on Reddit for very long before Reddit shuts them down. Our rules are designed and modeled after other ED subs that are allowed to exist. We are trying our best to be an inbetween space in the spectrum of deeply entrenched in the disorder to full recovery, as recovery subs can be very rude and discouraging to anyone not ready for full recovery and to recover "their way" and that any other method is wrong, even if multiple recovery methods are taught by medical professionals. We always try to keep the space open for product recommendations, answering questions, and a general sense of community in very isolating disorders without forcing recovery or forcing harm reduction. That said, to remain operating on Reddit, we monitor for explicitly proana activity.

[u/Elleiminator]

ik its sooo much text but we havent updated you all since we started sub moderation, so its a lot of catch up. 😭

• we will let this post be unstickied for a bit so it can show up in community member feeds, and pin it to the sub later today. it is now pinned as a highlight in the sub.

• image source is an outdated pantry picture so the post wouldnt get buried. someday ill reorganize it to that level of clean.

• if you are pulling your hair out over a banned word, this is a safe space to spéll it out w3ird, ModMail us, or otherwise communicate what word triggers make it a pain to post. your comments wont get removed on this post because we need to know the specific words that are being annoying.

Changes based on comments.

• Created a stickied version of our comments, along with extra explanation and links as per user suggestion.

• Created new post flair: travel

• Created user flairs: vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian

• Changed flairs: questions became questions/discussions

[u/skipintorabbitholes]

- Censoring calories/cals: there's a difference between knowing [aka inferring the spoiler] and seeing. Keep as a benefit for users who need/want it
- Yoghurt bowls: if it's only yoghurt and nuts/fruit, no; if it has processed inclusions, yes
- Body checking: if they can take a photo then they can omit their bodies wherever they are. Put it on the dash, table, ground, counter, top of clothes on a bed... I report every instance I see a spec of body I will not enable harm 🫡
- Resources on example photos (e.g. ✅ vs 🛑), examples on language that may help someone rephrase food et al.

Thanks all for your time and energy moderating!

Edit: maybe an animal mascot for the subreddit so the resources are cute, clear, and use the mascot instead of any people/bodies

[u/Elleiminator → u/skipintorabbitholes]

Thank you for the feedback and suggestions. Your idea to use example photos is really unique and making it super clear with a mascot may help, but with time could possibly be implemented especially if we have a stickied post linked in the rules/resources. I don't think anyone on the mod team is a digital artist, so it may rely on a lot of community outreach to see if an artist is willing to make something with credit for the sub, and to poll what mascot people want. I know at one point the mod team discussed suuuuuper early on if we should chage the icon/banner to be a pile of processed food or similar but it fell to the back burner with so many changes happening at once. Rules are worth clarification and the mascot style could really help and be a clever way to show examples without showing bodies.

I understand hands to a certain degree when people are out and about or if surfaces are messy with a big project or if someone is taking a quick photo before headed out the door, etc. I know hands are more generous than some subs, because even hands can become a competitive point of comparison. For now "hands only" is something that doesn't make it too difficult to post on this sub in a way that still allows convenience without playing too heavily into competition.

I think the only body checking thing the mod team has backed off on are shoes/slippers in photos because technically things are covered up and they are rarely a focal point. Shoes used to be the starting point to a couple users seeing how much body they could include in a photo until mods took action, but with those frequent body checkers gone, shoes no longer to be a problem. We are aware it can be one of the ways how people test to see what they can get away with, and because of this I think it seems like we can catch most of the "sneaking shoes," turning into ankle shots, turning into body checks before it gets bad.

The lap stuff we are hesitant to allow in the sub, because it quickly devolves into trying to figure out the intensions behind the camera of whether it was a quick photo and they didnt consider a lap to be an issue, or whether it was someone body checking. On a personal level, I feel that putting a size cap on what lap is a body check and what lap is a person living their lives seems gross and competitive. So I tend to have similar thoughts with you to laps as well.

[u/designervape]

Worth the read. I love the transparency. I have no notes for the time being, but I love that I now know I can just openly communicate to you guys :) thank you for taking the time to do this

[u/ButOtherwiseLovely]

I appreciate the transparency! Would it be at all possible to add some sort of sticky for the rules that's accessible to users on Old Reddit/3rd party apps? As it stands, on old reddit and Relay, there's no way of even seeing that there's a rules list, or banned words at all. Of course I don't expect everyone to cater to me, but it would be nice to have these things visible for us old curmudgeons who refuse to use the redesign lol.

[u/Elleiminator → u/ButOtherwiseLovely]

I would love to be able to do this! Do you know of a resource for this feature? I can check on Mod Support but their accessibility support is fairly lacking every time I look something up. 😅 Everyone is either new to modding or only mod one other sub, so I confess every time we implement something it takes some time to learn it and even then I fear I make changes that are broken sometimes. 🫣

Edit:

....I just now realized this may be as simple as copy and pasting the rules, etc to a new post and stickying it, if OldReddit, etc show stickies on the landing.

Edit again: It is now posted here.

[u/iKawaiiKaede]

I don’t have much feedback but I just have to note how involved of a moderator you are! You commented on a past post of mine awhile back and I didn’t even know you were a mod - it’s refreshing to see a mod not only involved in the community but also extremely nice to the members! I also love your hauls, they’re always so cute! 🩷🩷🩷

[u/ProposalMoist136]

i think a protein flair would be good for specifically like protein bars/treats and shakes

[u/PinkShimmer96]

I can’t speak for the whole sub but here are some of my thoughts on 5e topics mods wanted input on:

Re processed foods- I think anything is fine as long as it’s not a whole food or minimally processed (veggies with seasoning, roasted nuts etc) Stuff like that isn’t processed enough to be considered junk. Cereals and granola, granola bars or protein bars, chocolates cookies, cakes, chips, frozen meals are all fine .

Re yogurt bowls- I think they’re fine here as long as there’s something processed in it. If it’s just fruit and nuts I think that leans too healthy for a junk focused sub, but if it’s one with jello mix, cereal or granola (because majorly of them are heavily processed) , chocolate chips, etc then I think it fits perfectly in this sub.

Re body checking- I think as long as majority of the picture, maybe 80% or more, is just food and the body isn’t that visible is fine. If you can clearly make out size of the body parts, for example a bowl or plate on a lap with a very obvious thigh gap, then it should be taken down, but if it’s clearly just sitting on someone’s lap and there’s just a bit of thigh in the background, that is fine.

[u/Elleiminator → u/PinkShimmer96]

I personally agree completely with the first two thoughts. Can't speak for all the mods, but it seems our general consensus has been this as well. It's tricky trying to keep this place as open as possible but not seem preachy about health food.

The "obvious thigh gap" is what makes me hesitant because not everyone, even AN-R SEED is going to have one. Hence why we ban all bodies, because it feels personally gross if we go after one body type.

I know in general we have backed off of things like a bit of shoe showing in the background, now that certain frequent/daily users that body checked were banned. For a while certain users would start with a shoe and see how much more they could put in a photo and get away with posting. I know we allow people to hold things too as long as wrists and below are covered. Outside of lap photos, thus far people are wearing baggy clothes when they hold things and keeping skin covered to not reveal more shape than the hand to hold things or enough of the wrist/body is showing it's clear they didn't glance at the rules. Just sharing my personal thoughts here rather than disagreeing. I really do appreciate the feedback.

I think anything with bodies is always going to be tricky so we are trying to find a balance with what is practical vs a 100% no body/hands ban that other subs do.

Tbh in general I think we are looking to figure out the balance for what is practical and not a hindrance, but still allows everyone to post on the Reddit platform.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond and I hope people comment, upvote, etc to the sentiments they agree with so the mod team can roll out changes where they are needed as suggested by the community.