Category: Research

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...

Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) 2024 will take place in Korea from February 28 to March 5, with all seven sessions examining the theme of Epistemic Justice. The question of how to reflect the lived experiences of the eating disorder sufferers, and those of the mental health patients themselves into...

Early responses to the call for family stories about experience with Family Based Treatment (FBT) for treatment of anorexia nervosa have been a revelation. I posted the call on my blog in October to invite first-person stories for the Second Edition of My Kid is Back – Empowering Parents to...

A new counselling service is providing education and support for those caring for someone with an eating disorder. Eating Disorders Families Australia’s (EDFA) new Fill The Gap counselling service is specifically designed to support eating disorder carers during the often long and exhausting years of supporting a loved one through...

The book My Kid is Back means a lot to me because my parents did not see their kid come back. When I developed anorexia nervosa (AN) at age 11 (shortly after this picture was taken) there was no help for my parents or me. I wish my parents had...

Exciting news! Professor Daniel Le Grange and I are writing an update to the first edition of My Kid is Back – Empowering Parents to Beat Anorexia Nervosa.  Families who have participated in Family-Based Treatment (FBT) for a child with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) are warmly invited to share their stories...