...Until Eating Disorders Are No More

Hi, I'm Matt, a Richmond, VA based eating disorder activist and advocate. Main page located at http://arenomore.wordpress.com.

Feel free to use the Ask box or to email me at EDsNoMore@gmail.com.

An eating disorder is nothing to be ashamed of!
Recent Tweets @TilEDsAreNoMore
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Posts tagged "RVA"

Striving for Perfection: Body Image in Males

Got to participate in a panel discussion on body image in males for The Stream, a program which airs on Al Jazeera English. Really stoked to have been a part of it, especially because of the other panelists. Alan Aragon, a nutrition and body building expert, had a lot of unique things to talk about that were new to me.

Here's a clip from the interview I did with Huffington Post Live last month regarding eating disorders in men. You can watch the full interview segment here: http://arenomore.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/anorexia-in-men-on-the-rise-huffington-post-live-interview/

Here’s a clip from my interview last month with Huffington Post Live about eating disorders in men. You can watch the full segment here.

vcu-gsex:

I wanted to let you know that I’ve been invited to be on a panel discussing eating disorders in men on Huffington Post Live. Thought I’d share since eating disorders are what led me to GSEX in the first place. My understanding is that my friend, author Carrie Arnold, and the founder of UK charity group Men Get Eating Disorders, Too, Sam Thomas, will also be taking part. 

I’m really excited that HP is doing this and to be a part of it, since it’s currently Eating Disorder Awareness Week! 

I posted the full interview on my blog, which you can see here: 


http://arenomore.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/anorexia-in-men-on-the-rise-huffington-post-live-interview/ 

Thanks, 
Matt 


Matthew Wetsel
Research Specialist
Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 
Neuropsychology
Virginia Commonwealth University

[Here’s the facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TilEDsAreNoMore]

Small update, the other (awesome) people I mentioned ended up not being able to participate. But the other panelists had lots of great stuff to say, so you should go listen to them too!

New post about religion and recovery. What’s a nonbeliever to do when the G-word is getting dropped left and right?

From the link:I had never been comfortable with the personified notion of God. Just typing the word God I feel conflicted. As I write this, I debate if I should put it in quotes or make the ‘g’ lowercase. And back then, when the word ‘God’ was invoked in meetings or by friends, I would feel myself tune out because it’s something I just couldn’t relate to.”
 

(Fitspo) was never about health – it’s all about body image, and assumption that you are (or should be) dissatisfied with the way you look. The only way to have any kind of standard, though, is to compare your body to other bodies, because if we all looked identical, it wouldn’t be an issue, right? Comparing yourself to others, though, is a surefire way to never, ever be satisfied with what you have or how you look.
Finally found time to get a new post up. You can read the full article here.

Click the title for my full write-up from Lobby Day last week!

We hold a Congressional Briefing every time there’s a Lobby Day to offer in-depth testimonies from a variety of people who have been effected by eating disorders. This Spring, the spotlight was on diversity, because eating disorders don’t discriminate by race, gender, orientation, cultural background, or socioeconomic status.

Among the speakers was Sarah Yeung, an immigrant from Hong Kong, shared a moving testimony about developing an eating disorder after relocating to the U.S. and the challenges she faced getting treatment. Another woman named Tracy Smith spoke on behalf of her daughter, Reanna, who died while waiting for treatment to be approved. Tracy had been told by her insurance company that her daughter’s eating disorder was not “life threatening” and denied treatment. Desperate, Tracy took a new job with a better insurance plan, but Reanna died just two weeks before the plan would have come into effect.

I wish these were uncommon stories. But I hear them all the time. In a country like the United States where eating disorders have been observed, treated, and diagnosed for over half a century, it is shameful and tragic and wrong that people are dying from a treatable and preventable problem in record numbers.”

The sign I’m holding reads: ‘ I support FREED because some people still don’t believe men can get eating disorders. I was anorexic for two years.’

A friend who was about to go into inpatient treatment for the second or third time asked me if I thought she was a failure for ‘not succeeding’ the previous attempts. I told her no, because there’s a huge difference between ‘failure’ and ‘not succeeding.’ The only failure in my book is not finding the courage to try. A lot of the time, that means setting aside our pride and our own self-perceptions of how we ‘should’ be able to do this or that without assistance, and that can take a whole lot of courage.
Excerpt from my latest post. You read can read it here.
Finally had a chance to see Miss Representation last night at a VCU screening, and got my review right here!
“Other films, such as America the Beautiful, go a little bit more in depth in their dissection of the current culture surrounding body image and how we regard women. But, if America the Beautiful is a meticulous analysis of that culture, Miss Representation is a call to arms against it and the patriarchy which created and reinforces all the problems brought up, both for those of us living it now but especially for the rising generation.”

Finally had a chance to see Miss Representation last night at a VCU screening, and got my review right here!

“Other films, such as America the Beautiful, go a little bit more in depth in their dissection of the current culture surrounding body image and how we regard women. But, if America the Beautiful is a meticulous analysis of that culture, Miss Representation is a call to arms against it and the patriarchy which created and reinforces all the problems brought up, both for those of us living it now but especially for the rising generation.”

All the posts from the Reasons for Recovery blog series are up, which you can see by following this link to a category search for NEDAW on the blog. Anne-Sophie Reinhardt also posted a great summary of all the posts here.

If you found out that your spouse or child had diabetes or cancer, it would be helpful to read up on it to be a better source of support for their health. They’ll obviously be learning a lot about whatever their health diagnosis is, because they’re the ones that have to live with it, so it seems a natural continuation that educating yourself on the subject is a good place to start if you want to be helpful to them. Why should an eating disorder be any different? The friends I had who took the time to gain a better understanding of what I was going through were the ones who made the biggest difference.
A lot of people ask me how to approach or support someone with an eating disorder. You hear a lot of things about what NOT to do, but not much is said about the alternatives to the reflex responses. Here’s a starting off point for beginning that conversation. Full post here.