Anorexia is by definition body dysmorphia
Ben Leo said:
“it's just a definition of fact that somebody with anorexia is suffering from body dysmorphia. That's what it is.”
Anorexia does involve a distorted perception of one's body, so conflating it with body dysmorphic disorder can sound like a reasonable clinical shorthand to a non-specialist.
Anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder are two separate diagnoses with separate criteria, separate treatments, and separate clinical histories. Anorexia centres on fear of weight gain and a distorted relationship with eating; body dysmorphic disorder centres on preoccupation with a perceived physical flaw. They can occur in the same person, but one is not a definition of the other, and no diagnostic manual treats them that way. The reason this matters is that the entire comparison between gender-affirming care and offering liposuction to someone with anorexia rests on that premise: if the premise is clinically wrong, the analogy has no foundation, and the young people who need care most are the ones left without it.
What I said at the time:
“I do not agree that anorexia is body dysmorphia.”
The error matters here because it is the foundation of the anorexia-to-trans-care comparison: if the premise is clinically wrong, the analogy collapses, but viewers who accept it may believe gender-affirming care is as inappropriate as offering liposuction to someone with anorexia.