A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
People all over the world will be forming goals for the new year through the rest of December, seeking to improve themselves once the clock strikes 2017. Some of the most popular resolutions are health-oriented, including going to the gym more often and eating better, which can spell trouble for people struggling to overcome eating [...]
Pixabay Images Puberty had hit me hard. My body wasn't changing, it had changed – I just woke up one morning to find stretch marks and curves. I no longer looked like my friends, in fact I stuck out like a sore thumb. Once my mum found me crying. I hated my body. I [...]
Hugh Johnson for the Guardian The siblings of those with anorexia or other eating disorders are often overlooked. The UK’s leading eating disorder charity, Beat, has described siblings as the “forgotten victims”. In one report on the charity’s website, eight teenagers with anorexic sisters were interviewed about their experiences. All were negatively affected, [...]
Flikr Images The universal truth of puberty and adolescence is body change, and relatively rapid body change. Teenagers have to cope with all kinds of comparisons, with their peers, with the childhood bodies they leave behind, and with the altered images used in advertising and in the self-advertising on social media. It may [...]
Research indicates that there are generally low levels of mental health literacy in the community. General beliefs and misunderstandings about mental health affect community responses to eating disorders. Understanding the facts about eating disorders can reduce stigma, increase awareness and consequently improve the prevention, early identification and help-seeking among sufferers. The National Eating Disorders Collaboration (NEDC) have identified five common misconceptions about [...]
Often masked as a health-kick a new form of the eating disorder, anorexia, is manifesting itself in teenagers. When John and Julie Armstrong's 12-year-old son, Jed, told them that he wanted to get fit in the summer of 2014, neither thought anything of it. A keen footballer, Jed designed a regime of exercise for himself [...]
Photos of emaciated women proudly displaying their protruding hips and ribs, as well as thinspirational quotes "fat-shaming" those who dare to eat, continue to thrive on social media, despite the best attempts by sites like Instagram to temper the reach of the pro-eating disorder community. Some girls gain thousands of followers posting pictures of "thigh gaps" [...]
It’s true that bulimia happens among ballet dancers and beauty queens, and other people whose bodies are their livelihoods. But the reality of bulimia and other eating disorders that involve purging – through vomiting, overexercise, or laxative abuse – is that many people suffering from them don’t look like ballerinas or pageant contestants. Many women [...]
''Ana'' is not a real person but an identity, adopted as self, friend and foe, the embodiment of anorexia. Her speech is the self-talk and self-hate that typifies a condition that is all about internalising how you look - or think you look - on the outside, and clinging to the conviction that salvation [...]
A NEW report shows 12,000 Tasmanians suffer from anorexia nervosa or bulimia.It says the state needs a dedicated eating disorder co-ordinator to oversee better local support services. The Sprouting Seeds report, compiled by the Hobart Women's Health Centre, says another 20,000 Tasmanians are impacted by binge eating disorders and the provision of a specialist eating [...]
