Things to Do During National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (or Anytime!)
1. Sign the National Eating Disorders Association’s Declaration of Independence from a Weight- Obsessed World to free yourself from the three D’s: Dieting, Drive for Thinness, and Body Dissatisfaction.
2. Celebrate Fearless Friday - A Day Without Dieting - and feel how empowering a diet-free day of self-acceptance can be!
3. Attend a workshop, presentation, lecture, or meeting in your community that will help you feel better about yourself. See the National Eating Disorders Association’s website, your local newspaper or campus calendar for events.
4. Use your voice to effect change: join the National Eating Disorders Association’s national media advocacy campaign to write letters of protest and praise to media, corporations and advertisers who promote negative or positive messages concerning body size, weight, dieting and eating disorders. Sign up via the web at www.NationalEatingDisorders.org.
5. Consciously choose to avoid making comments about other people or yourself on the basis of body size or shape.
6. Compliment someone else for a skill, talent, or characteristic they have that you appreciate. Remind yourself that a person’s value is not determined by their shape or size.
7. Enjoy your favorite meal without feelings of guilt or anxiety over calories and fat grams.
8. Donate your jeans and other old clothes that no longer fit your body comfortably to charity. Someone else will appreciate them, and you won’t have to worry about the way they fit anymore.
9. Start each morning by looking in the mirror and saying something nice about yourself out loud.
10. Put away or throw away your bathroom scale.
11. Look through magazines and newspapers, ripping out advertisements, photos and articles that promote negative feelings about weight, body image and food. Talk back to the TV when you see or hear an ad that makes you feel dissatisfied with your body.
12. Read a book that lifts your self-esteem, promotes positive body image, encourages healthy living or helps you overcome stereotypes about social standards of beauty.
13. If you know someone who is struggling with an eating disorder, take the time to reassure them of your friendship and support for their recovery process.
14. Throw out all of the diet products in your house.
15. Remind yourself and others that It’s What’s Inside That Counts!
16. Become a member of the National Eating Disorders Association and join the effort to create a world where self-esteem is not weighed in pounds on a scale. Visit www.NationalEatingDisorders.org or call (206) 382-3587 for more information.
Challenge yourself to pick at least one of these easy-to-do tasks during each day of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week!
© 2004 National Eating Disorders Association. Permission is granted to copy and reprint materials for
educational purposes only. National Eating Disorders Association must be cited and web address listed.
www.NationalEatingDisorders.org ???? Information and Referral Helpline: 800.931.2237
Personal Note
The bold face type in the NEDA list is my contribution. My original intention, in making what I considered key words stand out, was for ease in reading (or scanning as blog visitors often do). But as I look at the words in bold as a group I realize they make a kind of affirmation statement that goes beyond the specific tasks. They address the kind of inner and outer energy rallying and action steps that contribute so greatly to eating disorder revocery.
I invite you to take another look at the NEDA list and catch those words. You might even make a list of them and see how they fit with what might be helpful in your personal recovery program. A word or two might fill in a blank spot you didn’t know was there.
By all means, share with us on this blog your experience when you do any of these activities.
For me, and all of us in the eating disorder recovery professional community, every day is eating disorder awareness day. I’ve been a member and supporter of NEDA since its inception. I support the recovery of others. I don’t diet. I wear clothes that fit, and I have no diet products in the house.
Whoops. Last night I co-hosted a wonderful dinner party in my home for the UCLA program, Dinner with 12 Strangers. Undergraduates, graduate students and alumni (that’s my category) met in my home for a terrific evening. Somebody brought tall bottles of soda including a diet soda. A left over half bottle full is in my kitchen but is on its way out.
These diet products do slip in, don’t they?
(I think “whoops” belongs on the list. We need to catch our errors of oblivion and carelessness and correct them as soon as possible. That’s essential for keeping on track in eating disorder recovery.)
Joanna Poppink, MFT, psychotherapist eating disorder specialist, Los Angeles, CA bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating recovery, www.poppink.com
Comments
4 Responses to “Things to Do During National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (or Anytime!)”
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Why do you end your posts with
“Joanna Poppink, MFT, psychotherapist eating disorder specialist, Los Angeles, CA bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating recovery, http://www.poppink.com”
It’s really annoying. Are you that desperate for patients or something?
I supply an identifying signature line with my posts as a service of convenience to readers who quickly want to know my qualifications and/or how to access more information.
Joanna
This is such a wonderful and inspiring experience to share with me. Your being helped by my work encourages me to continue.
I wish you every success on your healing journey.
warmly,
Joanna