5 Ways to Honor Eating Disorder Awareness Week
February 25th through March 2nd is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW). This is a week dedicated to increasing awareness of eating disorders – to provide information, support, visibility, and hope to everyone affected by eating disorders.
This year’s EDAW theme is celebrating the healing in community. Eating disorders thrive in isolation. Community is the antidote.
Whether you are in recovery, know someone who is or simply want to better understand this illness that effects 9% of the US population, there are a number of ways you can honor and celebrate EDAW.
Here are a few.
1. Smash your scale! Our collective preoccupation with thinness and fixation on weight fuels eating disorders. Making the bold decision to stop weighing yourself and letting the number on the scale determine your worth is liberating!
Note: To ensure safety, place your scale on a flat surface in an open area with a drop cloth underneath and make sure to wear eye protection.
Prefer not to smash? You could also transform your scale into something positive, changing the dial from numbers to positive messages. Or, decoupaging with symbols of your recovery and what you are reclaiming as you de-emphasize your focus on the scale.
2. Clean up your news feed. Unfollow accounts that reinforce the thin ideal and make you feel bad about your body. Add accounts that celebrate body diversity and promote body acceptance.
3. Clean out your closet. Get rid of clothes that don’t fit. Bodies change. Holding onto clothes that fit a different version of your body reinforces negative body image beliefs.
4. Watch a body-liberating TV show or movie. There are a number of streamable shows and movies that counter mainstream body narratives. Here are a few – Shrill, Little Miss Sunshine, Gilrs, The Mindy Project, Dietland, Thunder Force. Or, watch the documentary Fattitude.
5. Visit websites and follow accounts to expand your learning and awareness. Here are a few we suggest checking out:
MEDA – medainc.org
Center for Body Trust – centerforbodytrust.com
ANAD – anad.org
NAED – allianceforeatingdisorders.org
NEDA – nationaleatingdisorders.org
If you decide to participate in any of the activities we shared, we’d love to hear about it! We have a number of scales patients have passed along to use over the years and we’ve been discussing how we might repurpose or ceremoniously dispose of them. Follow us on instagram to get some ideas!
