When I speak in schools, I’m often asked for advice on how to help a friend with an eating disorder (and not just girls – a male student ask me in a school in regional NSW recently). So I was really pleased to see the piece ‘Help! My BFF is wasting away before my eyes: […]
Following my Sunday Herald Sun column critical of ‘The Biggest Loser’ last week , I heard from a number of women in recovery from eating disorders, who wrote about the negative impact the series had on them – including Melbourne woman Belinda Davis, 38, who was happy for me to share her story here. It […]
Tacky show is not worth the weight REALITY weight-loss show The Biggest Loser claims to be all about health – leading a new “social movement” against the “obesity crisis”. But many authorities – and those suffering from disordered eating – say it actually contributes to bad health. Parading and humiliating obese people, dangerously rapid weight […]
Guest post by Body Matters Australasia. Exciting times await us, comrades! As many of you know, BodyMatters recently launched ‘Endangered Bodies Australia’ – the Australian branch of a global non-profit grassroots movement that challenges visual culture and the multi-billion dollar diet industry. With branches in London, New York, Dublin, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires and now […]
Connecting beauty and self-denial: a dangerous approach to health and fitness Eating disorder experts are questioning an image on Lorna Jane’s Facebook of a young woman in exercise gear and with no body fat aside the wording: “Nothing tastes as good as fit feels”. The original slogan is a motto supermodel Kate Moss said in an […]
Clinical director of BodyMatters Australasia and co-founder of Collective Shout, Lydia Turner has a piece on ABC The Drum today defending the position she took in leading a campaign critical of a conference of girls’ educators inviting the CEO of Jenny Craig as its keynote speaker. Every day in my work as an eating disorders therapist […]
Because children don’t already feel bad about themselves enough, there’s a new book just about to be released titled Maggie Goes On a Diet. I asked Collective Shout colleague, psychotherapist and managing director of BodyMatters Australasia Lydia Jade Turner, for her views. Written by self-proclaimed “obesity expert” Paul M. Kramer, Maggie Goes On a Diet […]
Shapewear line to help you be more like the “lucky” slim girls I was recently asked to comment on a ‘story’ about underwear brand Triumph announcing new body shape descriptions, replacing fruit (apple, pear) with artists (Botticelli, Rembrandt, Ruben, Da Vinci, Raphael and Matisse). I gave a quick comment that it was still labelling and […]
Who is really benefitting from this show? I’ve watched a couple of episodes of The Biggest Loser Families and find myself cringing at the extent of degradation and shaming. To see Sarah-Jayne begging through tears not to have to stand on the scales the first time, was harrowing. It was as though she was being led […]
How can you nourish something you hate? Collective Shout colleague and Managing Director of BodyMatters Australasia Lydia Turner has written an important piece for Healthy Weight Week highlighting the conflicts of interest in anti-obesity research. She urges a health-based, not weight based approach to health. This week marks the start of ‘Healthy Weight Week,’ brought to […]
The backlash against corporate exploitation of women “Women are frequently positioned very differently to men in media. Often shown as passive, vulnerable, scantily clad, headless, and sometimes dead…” Today a guest post from eating disorder prevention specialist and member of Collective Shout’s core team, Lydia Turner. It’s reprinted from the Fierce, Freethinking Fatties blog. In recent […]
Lydia Turner on the voluntary body image code Eating disorder specialist Lydia Turner from BodyMatters Australasia, who has become something of a regular here on the MTR blog, has a piece worth reading in The Drum Unleashed on the Government’s new voluntary body image code (no, we’re not done with the critique of that yet, see […]
