Update: New Tech City’s “How Eating Disorders Evolved Online”
If you’ve been with me since last summer, then you might remember a radio broadcast about the internet and eating disorders that I participated in last September. The other day, the host of that show (New Tech City on WNYC) contacted me to say that the story had done so well that they would be re-airing the story with an update! I wanted to share a link to the updated story here with all of you. It was pretty exciting to be included in the story, especially because the New Tech City gang treated the topic so respectfully and thoughtfully. They were a team I could trust with my story....
Read MoreNEDAwareness Week 2015
Media Literacy Today begins National Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2015. Last year, I spent NEDAwareness Week inside a residential treatment facility. I hadn’t even known the week was coming up until I saw it on the weekly schedules we received, which told us what groups were available and when our various therapy and medical appointments were taking place. I had never “celebrated” (if that’s the right word… commemorated?) NEDAwareness Week before then. After all, it had only been a little over two months since I’d even learned that what I’d...
Read MoreRefinery29 Accuses Author of Claiming to Cure Bulimia
For the last few weeks I have been writing for the Proud2BMe.org Media Response Team. A dozen or so 20-somethings (and some younger) keep an eye out for images, articles, and anything else that sustains the thin ideal, unrealistic body image, fat (or thin) shaming, and so on and so forth. My editor recently alerted us to a recent book review put out by the website Refinery29 about a forthcoming book called Chasing Hunger. According to Refinery29 writer Kelsey Miller, the book is “so outrageous and offensive that it’s almost laughable. Almost.” And indeed — what Miller recounted was...
Read MoreDoes This Mannequin Make Me Look Fat?
In terms of self-serving tactics from the fashion industry, I thought we’d seen it all, what with rampant photoshopping and the culture of eating disorders among its spokeswomen (a.k.a., models). Then, last week, we on the Proud2BMe Media Response Team were alerted by our editor Emma to the latest trend among retailers — visibly underweight mannequins. Really? REALLY? Must we go to such ridiculous lengths to make people feel badly about what real human bodies look like? Apparently, yes. As I researched this bizarre trend for my post for Proud2BMe, I found out that the store that Emma...
Read MoreSocial Media and the Path to Recovery
The Internet and social media have played a complicated role in my eating disorder. In the depths of my illness, I used to scour the web to learn how to become a “better” anorexic. I wanted—I needed—to lose weight, and the Internet, with its a fund of information and hidden pro-eating disorder communities, seemed to be the answer. One day, however, I chanced upon the National Eating Disorders Association website and found myself drawn to the recovery stories. These women and men struggled with food just like I did—and yet their lives no longer pivoted around restrictive food...
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