Category: Research

I am surrounded by 10 family members inside the National Library of Australia, Canberra. We are in a private reading room to visit my diary ‘family’, the early years of which are spread before us on a long table. Emotions bubble within—I feel exposed, unclothed, with my mind, heart, and...

As the sole host of Korea’s Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW), I am researching the themes and issues to be covered in the seven sessions of our third event in February 2025. To fully understand and engage with these topics, I immerse myself deeply, processing them, formulating insightful questions to...

It’s funny when we realise that we have feet in two worlds that barely speak to each other. I have one foot in the world of eating disorder (ED) research and treatment and the other in the world of literary studies. The literary people tend to assume that books must...

Until a few months ago, my diaries and I had been inseparable for more than 60 years. We had stuck together despite moving house more than 24 times in my search for peace within. Never a day apart. The diaries were my one constant from age 12. They were my...

Tanya declares she and anorexia are irrevocably entwined. Fear is ever-present. Here, Tanya explores the roots of her fears.                                   Editor, June Alexander I have physical fears, emotional and psychological fears, and spiritual fears...

Improved outcomes for adults with eating disorders are possible! Karen, Tanya and Anne could be forgiven for feeling down-hearted after struggling for decades with Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa (SEAN). However, they live in HOPE. This article is a collaboration by three Australian women in their fifties. Between them, they...

Keynote speaker at the 2013 National Eating Disorder Association conference, Dr Thomas Insel, was speaking from the heart when he said, “Eating disorders are family disorders.”* His words remain vital today. When a Federal government shutdown meant Dr Insel could not address the NEDA audience as director of the National...

A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020-2021, was the gift of time to embark on the incredible journey of writing my memoir The Longest Match: Rallying to Defeat an Eating Disorder in Midlife. A project of this magnitude always seemed daunting but as soon as I began pouring through...

My eating disorder has gone to Canberra, Australia’s national capital. The eating disorder has travelled there within the pages of my diary collection, acquired by the National Library of Australia (NLA). There, the eating disorder will be open to public scrutiny. Canberra is an eight-hour road journey from where I...

My son Joe developed anorexia at the age of 12 in 2002. He lost 25 per cent of his body weight in 12 weeks. Since that torrid time, I have known that caring for a loved one with an eating disorder is exhausting, distressing, disorientating, excruciating and terrifying. As with...