Company apologises for ‘error’ after outcry including from eating disorder specialists It’s so good to be able to share another win with supporters. This one thanks to 13-year-old Melbourne teen Naomi, who spotted this billboard advertising the DFO at Morabbin Airport in Melbourne. Naomi told her mother, long time supporter Gloria Anderson, who texted me […]
Suicide rates for young Australians double in a decade This report on ABC News yesterday, ‘Suicide rates for young Australians highest in 10 years, researchers call for new prevention strategies’, reveals the distressing situation regarding the numbers of young people wanting to end their lives. In my talks in schools around the country, young people […]
‘The glamorising and approval of teen girl audiences of the captioned desire to depart from life is surely one of the most dangerous digital conversations unfolding today’ These postings provide a snapshot of the Instagram dialogue trending amongst Australian adolescent girls. It is a virtual battleground of life and death on the popular image-sharing […]
Dr Emma Rush and I were guests on the ABC Nightline program hosted by Tony Delroy last night. You can listen here: abctonydelroy
‘The ultimate guide to being yourself’ is about self-acceptance. It offers girls three lessons in how to be themselves: Fall in love with you; Quit Faking It and Get inspired, not obsessed. The first encourages girls to recognise and love themselves for their unique traits. This is well and good. But I don’t think we […]
As is often the case, I find the most helpful offering for girls in teen girl magazines can be found in the shared experiences of the girls themselves. A passion of mine is opening up safe spaces for girls to talk about issues which are often surrounded by shame, meaning girls don’t get the help […]
Readers wanting something of substance from Dolly’s June issue would do best to skip the first half and go straight to the second. Articles on self-harm, hate pages and unhealthy attitudes toward food redeem the insubstantial nature of the pages that go before. ‘Would you “like” a hate page?’ explores the phenomenon of online hate […]
One suicide is a tragedy. But what happens when a community is rocked by a series of suicides, one after another, all of them young people? Do the families mourn in private, fearful that expressing their grief publicly could result in more deaths? Or does the community come together, so that individual families can tell […]
