Basically they see "disordered eating" (thoughts on/compensatory behaviors) as the foot in the door to eating disorders.  The logic fail is that, for the most part, the behaviors of people with disorders are the same as what everyone else does, just more extreme. There's nothing unusual about moderate compensatory behaviors.  if you adopt moral standards of physical and dietary health, you have an "eating disorder."  I'm not a fan of the moralism attached to eating that, for example, would have a person say that eating a particular thing way "bad", but this obviously absurd. I guess the US military gave me an eating disorder by instilling the idea that physical/personal care/grooming is a form of self-respect.