In the shoes of others

People should be educated about eating disorders

- I think people should be educated about eating disorders and mental health, because a lot of adults that I've talked to don't understand how it's a mental disorder, and forcing food on people is not something that can help. And I have friends that struggle with mental health disorders, and I think people need to be educated in these sort of things, it's not something that we talk about in school, or they touch about lightly and I think that we should be able to have a conversation about it that isn't awkward and people should be able to talk about it openly and be educated on it.

- If that's ok to ask, do you have any eating disorder yourself, or have friends who do?

- I struggle with eating disorders and self harm, and I think I have lots of friends who struggle with all sort of things. It's something so common...

- In terms of eating disorders and self harm, what would you like from maybe... your parents? Maybe that's a conversation you had, maybe not?

- It's a conversation we had... again, I just think it's something that people should be able to talk about and not be awkward about...

- Do you feel like it should be up to them to do the first step and say like « Oh I've noticed that you always wear long sleeves », or that you don't eat that much or... ?

- My parents have always been tuned in to these sort of things, but my friends, I mean, their parents didn't notice for about a year or something... and I didn't notice about my friends before I knew anything... They're all very secret things, people don't like to talk about them, you keep it to yourself... I think with the last generation it wasn't very talked about a lot, it was something very secret, I think I had to help my parents to understand this well.

- Let's say someone detects something about you, what would you like them to do?

- Obviously you don't want them to say the wrong thing, which is why... but of course, everyone needs to learn in the first place, you shouldn't be offended if someone says the wrong thing, because obviously it's something not talked about... I think, just checking in with your friends, and you shouldn't be nervous about saying the wrong thing, because there's no such thing as wrong thing, it's good to notice things in people and not leaving them unspoken...

- So maybe looking up information before starting the conversation? And there's organizations that can help with self harm, organizations for eating disorders, ...

- And there's people you can talk to in schools and universities...

- Yes... and maybe it can be a good thing to take half an hour of our time to read and get the basics, I guess?

- Exactly! There's information out there... just find someone you feel comfortable talking to. Even if it's just one person, someone in your school, someone on the phone, there's numbers you can call...

If you suffer from any eating disorder yourself or know/suspect to know someone who does, please get the right help! Here are the links to several organisations whose job is to help around these issues:
www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk
www.anorexiabulimiacare.org.uk
www.childline.org.uk
www.eatingdisordersni.co.uk
www.mind.org.uk
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