Scared telling my bro about my AN will give him an eating disorder?

im planning on telling my bro about my AN after the new year, since hes my best friend and the only person i really trust to react okay. my problem is that he - as is my whole family - is overobsessed with fat, practically terrified of it, and im afraid if i tell him about my AN it might push him into developing an eating disorder. is this a reasonable fear? he's 6 ft and 140 lbs (BMI 19), yet everytime he has the slightest softness on his belly, even if its just the result of too much junk food and not enough exercise and is so minimal it can easily be gotten rid of, he pretty much freaks out - "Im fat!" "I must have gained 5 pounds!". Even when he's got absolutely no fat on his stomach whatsoever he grabs the skin and exclaims about being able to feel the fat between his fingers and i keep telling him its not fat, it SKIN for crying out loud.

so. id wanted to tell him a bout my AN because i trust him, i feel hed be supportive, and im so sick of it being a secret, also i thought maybe it would help my recovery bcuz id have to be more consistent in eating enough if i knew he knew and was watching to see how much i eat, but im afraid maybe with his terror of fat that i could actually push him over the edge into an eating disorder. so maybe i should just not say anything? my whole family is terrified of fat and weight gain and my sister said recently if she was to marry someone theyd have to promise basically to not ever gain weight and to always keep fit, bcuz she could not marry someone if she knew they might get fat. not only is my family really triggering to me (even though none of them is overweight, only unfit, theyre always asking me for weight loss advice, and i tell them non-AN stuff like eat enough calories, eat healthy, exercise, and dont ever diet or fast - i talk such a good show theyd never suspect i have an ED. plus id never want them to go through what im going through so theres no way id advise them to do the stuff ive done) but im just so afraid that telling anyone about my AN will make the entire family eating disordered. any advice?

To be honest, it sounds like they may already be.

well, i know they definitely have some eating disordered mental processes going on, but so far as I am aware none of them have any physical ED symptoms - i.e. none of them are fasting, restricting, over-exercising, purging, etc. although i know for a fact none of them eat enough because of their very busy lifestyles. so are you saying that i probably shouldn't tell them about my AN? i dont want to push their disordered thought processes into actual disordered eating. i work very hard at giving them good advice on eating, and explaining to them all the scientific reasons why they should not fast or restrict - so far i seem to be convincing enough, theyve agreed not to restrict or diet, which i know for a fact they would have done if i hadnt set the facts straight for them. yet they think people who diet or have eating disorders are stupid and misguided, so i think that although they have an unhealthy fear of fat, they do want to use only healthy ways of maintaining fit lean bodies. i think i scared them out of restricting by explaining how it makes the metabolism slow down which makes your body actually hold onto fat and gain even faster when you stop restricting. they dont want to hold onto fat or gain so now they dont want to restrict for sure!

see, i know all the facts and science and yet im still eating disordered (but trying to recover). so even though i know they know the facts and so far it is keeping them away from unhealthy methods of maintaining/losing, i think that if i talked to them about my eating disorder it would push their already disordered thinking into actual physical disordered eating, especially since im the oldest and they copycat me. so you're right, they're just on the borderland of developing EDs, and ive changed my mind, im not going to tell my brother about my own struggles. i think rather than scaring him it might just rub off on him and id never want that to happen.

I think that if your bro were on the path to an ED that you telling him about yours, and how you want to get better, and how this is not a way to live probably wouldn't push him the wrong way.  I think if you were approaching this like it's ok and healthy and fine to be this way, that you may affect his choices in that way.  Make sure that he knows that you are not supporting a disordered eating lifestyle for you or anyone else in your family.

I think that having someone in your family say "this is the lifestyle we're beginning to support and we need to make steps to be/stay healthy" than that would probably be good for the whole family.  You should be prepared to defend your stance if the outcome isn't what you expected, you should be prepared to convince your brother/family that being skinny isn't necessarily healthy and that eating enough is important.  I feel like it won't come to that, but you should remember why it is that you feel this way before you go to anyone else, so that you can be confident that you are doing the right thing.  You are, doing the right thing, of course. 

I don't mean to frighten you at all, but I have/had an ED and now my younger sister does too.  I never told her about it directly, but there was a big to-do about it and I know she found out from my parents. 

Then again, if he's your best friend maybe you can support each other in treatment?  He's definitely got an unhealthy obsession with weight.  I'm also afraid if you tell him you could both get worse.  My best friend from high school became my ED "buddy" and we were terrible for each other. 

Although I also agree with thermal about how him seeing how badly you want to get better might be good for him.  It's hard to say how he will react because he might be in a totally different mental state than you are.  People with ED are not always the most rational creatures (I'll be the first to admit). 

I wish I could help my sister because I feel so guilty, but she vehemnetly denies her ED even though it's very obvious.  I wish you and your brother the best, it's really the most difficult thing I have faced so far.