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Kicking off today is NEDAwareness Week Feb 21-27. NEDA has created a daily calendar of ideas to help spark the conversation and theme: It’s Time To Talk About It. Find ways to get involved within your community and help the continuation of support, research, edcuation and improved treatment resources for those who suffer with Eating Disorders!
The mission of NEDAwareness Week
Our aim of NEDAwareness Week is to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment. Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses — not choices — and it’s important to recognize the pressures, attitudes and behaviors that shape the disorder.
What is NEDAwareness Week?
NEDAwareness Week is a collective effort of primarily volunteers, eating disorder professionals, health care providers, educators, social workers, and individuals committed to raising awareness of the dangers surrounding eating disorders and the need for early intervention and treatment.
How NEDAwareness Week Works
This year, NEDA is calling for everyone to do just one thing to help raise awareness and provide accurate information about eating disorders. NEDAwareness Week participants can choose from a huge range of ways to contribute: Distribute info pamphlets and put up posters, write one letter for Media Watchdogs, register as a Volunteer Speaker or host a Volunteer Speaker, coordinate a NEDA Walk, or arrange interactive and educational activities such as panel discussions, fashion shows, body fairs, movie screenings, art exhibits and more. As an official NEDAwareness Week participant you can be involved in any way that works with your schedule, resources, community, and interests. These events and activities attract public media attention – on local, national and international levels.
The National Eating Disorders Association-NEDA has issued a Call for Proposals for the September ’09 Conference sagaciously titled: Reshaping Our Future: A Vision for Recovery, Research, Attitudes and Action!
The goals of this conference are:
– Help family members, treatment professionals, health educators and activists to connect and share useful and supportive information that can be transformed into action.
– Familiarize attendees with the latest developments in the field of eating disorders and the implications of this new knowledge for prevention and treatment.
– Reduce the associated stigma of eating disorders and generate awareness about the realities of the illnesses by educating conference attendees, the media and, in turn, the general public, policymakers and opinion leaders.
– Provide a national convening to promote inclusiveness, enthusiasm, energy, optimism and a vision of hope for all conference attendees.
Workshop presenters can have a focus within the areas of family, treatment, special issues, outreach and education. The conference will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota September 10-12th, and the deadline for conference committee consideration on submissions is Wednesday, March 25th.
For further information contact Director of Programs-Laurie Vanderbloom info@nationaleatingdisorders.org – (206)382.3587.
If you haven’t read Hinshaw’s The Triple Bind you need to…
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“Impossible expectations — Blue jeans and “blue” genes *(love this analogy)* : depression and the triple bind — Life in the pressure cooker : impossible expectations and the culture of busy-ness — No place to run, no place to hide : the popular culture of “self-erasing identities” — When virtue is its own punishment : how empathy and verbal skills may put our girls at higher risk — Bratz dolls and pussycat dolls : teaching our girls to become sexual objects — The wired child : how cyberculture interferes with girls’ identities — See Jane hit : the new culture of violence among teenage girls — Is there a triple bind solution? — Conclusion: coming to terms with the triple bind.”
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Happy NEDAwareness Week 2009!
This is an exciting week full of events and highlights the message to “Get Real” about Eating Disorders as an illness not a choice and to continue raising awareness, prevention and advocating for those affected.
If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to view two powerful films: Swept and Beauty Mark and reside in the New York area you are in luck. Pace University along with NEDA will be Turning the Lens on Eating Disorders showcasing both films and will have the artistic panel of actors, directors/producers as well as ED educator panelist, Sondra Kronberg available for Q&A.
Both films offer up a great opportunity for further discussion and understanding and reach beyond the somewhat palate-less offerings unfortunately being held in most areas.
So kudos to you NYC for taking creative initiative and stretching limits! Sara and Stephanie I’ll be there in spirit– you both are inspirations!
A Chance to Heal is holding a seminar for educators in the Philly area concentrating on supporting healthy Body-Self Image issues and there is still time to register:
A professional educational opportunity for those who influence 5th-12th grade girls and boys.
Students are bombarded with negative messages influencing their resilience and self-image. Media forces encourage critical inner voices that predispose students to problems with drugs, alcohol and/or body image. This symposium will empower you to support positive thinking and confront these messages head-on.
Thursday, February 5, 2009 (Snow Date: February 19th) 3:30-5:30pm
Yarnall Auditorium: Germantown Friends School 31 W. Coulter Street, Philadelphia PA Registration: $10 – Register Now, Seating is Limited! Professional CE Credit Available for Educators and Registered Dietitians.
This time of year is well known for the Girl Scout Cookie Sale that embarks within most school communities, shopping malls and many an entrance at one’s local grocery store– I still do love the Thin Mints, kept in the freezer (yes, I’m weird!) and an extra box in the pantry, perfect with strong coffee or milky chai– yum!*
This year’s annual also brings an additional treat for those involved with youth groups, GS adult members/parents; and girl advocates in the Kalamazoo, Michigan area at the 2009 Girls Developer Summit whose conference theme: True Respect Starts on the Inside encompasses all day sessions ranging in topics from Internet Safety, Dating Violence, Nutrition, Positive Parenting/Family to Eating and Body Image Disorders, carried by keynote speaker and award-winning youth development author and advocate, Courtney Macavinta.
For registration and further information click here for brochure, phone: (800)788.4919 or contact Mariela Rua at mrua@gshom.org.
*GS has a new Daisy-Go-Rounds cinnamon flower cookie this year too!
-NY Times
… and putting real faces and voices to the lives of those with Eating Disorders. The NYtimes Health Guide along with Well column/blog by Tara Parker has a wonderful piece documenting a variety of brave and courageous individuals who share their journey of Hope and Healing.
–shanti
A wonderful non-profit organization created by Gail Schoenbach For Recovery and Elimination of Eating Disorders – F.R.E.E.D. will be holding a Mother-Daughter Workshop in conjunction with the Eating Disorders Association of New Jersey Saturday, October 18th from 9:30AM-2:30PM at Summit Medical Group.
The workshop’s aim is to “engage women and girls as they explore and challenge their beliefs about themselves, their bodies, and body image”. Freelance journalist, blogger and author, Courtney E. Martin who wrote Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters will be the keynote presenter along with therapist, Suzanne Rubinetti.
F.R.E.E.D.’s mission is to:
- Provide financial support for treating eating disorder (a major hindrance for sufferers and their families in obtaining treatment/recovery resources as well as follow-up care — F.R.E.E.D.’s priority and focus on this issue is to be commended).
- Increase public awareness and provide educational resources.
- Advocate for the acknowledgement and acceptance of Eating Disorders as a serious and urgent disease.
Ms Schoenbach’s own battle with ED and body image issues took place in silence for years until she began the slow process of recovery, and it was during this healing time that she found a passion and drive to create F.R.E.E.D. and her additional adjunct G.R.Schoenbach Foundation which holds annual fund-raising events and campaigns to continue her committed work.
Organizations like these are inspiring, so if you live in the New Jersey area, are a mother with a daughter with/without an eating disorder, go partake in “day of empowerment”, sharing, support and learning– it will do the body&mind good!
–shanti
I love fall!
I love our annual trip to the apple farm, the continued but slowing scramble to farmer’s markets until they close shop next month, the cool nights and the warmth of a wood-fed fire pit surrounded by the deep and intoxicating smells that this season brings along with it. The cornstalks soon to be put out along with the vibrantly hued pumpkins, the trees’ deciduous leaves now changing in accord… it’s a sensory orgasm!
Last week seemed a bit more hectic, balancing home, family and a personal work-life in conjunction with extended family and friends for our annual Late Summer-Fall Equinox potluck. But all the work and preparations reminded me how vital it is reconnecting with others whose lives are busy like ours, whose children are growing and/or grown, and gather for one evening to celebrate the change of season, share a bountiful meal, taste new creations, revisit old favorites and maintain some deeper meaning within our lives.
A couple of weeks ago I was inspired to see BANA (Bulimia Anorexia Nervosa Association) holding it’s Global Dinner Table Conference (wonderful titled theme!) and extending efforts to educate and connect within the Ontario region with spokeswoman, advocate and eTalk journalist Ms Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau presenting a powerful personal journey through recovery from bulimia. Now as a healthy mother, wife and proponent for eating disorders she stated quite beautifully: “healing means reconstructing your notion of self, and who you are, and your connection with the world”.
BANA is one of a handful of grassroots organizations that actually carries out valuable, useful support and services instead of only allocating funds-donations and collecting data, along with having a vital partnership with the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) that is broadly interconnected with hospitals, medical communities, local demographics, schools and universities to align more effectively with clinicians and the broader public to reach those in need and provide support for families.
Another organization of note that has recently joined earlier this month at the “global table” is BEDA (Binge Eating Disorder Association) which can be additionally pivotal towards connecting those whose diagnosis is either “undefined” “unspecified” or completely overlooked towards the resources they need, and continue providing the educational and preventative services as well as highlighting probably the most common form of eating disorder more broadly present.
It’s aspiring to see such organizations take root and develop, gathering together as a unified front to fight an illness that has left far too many for too long uninvited or unheard to now join at “the global table” to come together!
“O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not,but sit
Beneath my shady roof, there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe;
And all the daughters of the year shall dance,
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers. “
– William Blake
With Dr Daniel leGrange taking his sabbatical in Australia there has been a hub of conference presentations and various skills-based workshops and training for implementing the Maudsley Method into eating disorder treatment and care as well as informing and assisting families and caregivers of utilizing this Family-Based approach to help their loved one.
The collaboration and gathering of these individuals, families and professionals probably could not have arrived at a better time since Australia has recently been highlighting an increase of younger children diagnosed with anorexia.
On a positive note, one Sydney mother describes their experience using the Maudsley Method for their adolescent daughter as valuable and further stated, “It’s not a quick fix. But we’re absolutely stronger as a family. We’ve always been strong.”
Go Maudsley!
contre l'anorexie... inform-empower-educate & heal 
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