This week is Eating Disorders Awareness Week in the UK.This year, an organization called Beat is trying to spread word about the Eating Disorder Awareness Week ( Feb 23rd to March 1st)
Eating Disorders Awareness Week is a chance to raise awareness and understanding of this serious mental illness, challenge stereotypes and stigmas and raise funds to help support those with eating disorders. During this week, the charity Beat will be running their ‘Sock It to Eating Disorders’ campaign, which encourages people to fundraise by wearing silly socks.
The idea for the ‘Sock It to Eating Disorders’ campaign arose at an eating disorders conference in Austria in 2010. Campaigner Kitty Weston was due to go on stage to deliver a speech when she found out that her friend’s daughter had passed away due to her anorexia, 10 years after her own daughter had also lost her life to the illness. There were no tissues to hand to offer comfort, so a colleague gave her a sock to dry her eyes with instead, and holding onto it helped her to deliver her speech and became a source of comfort as her campaigning continued.
Eating Disorders Awareness Week is supported by Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity, and people who fundraise over £250 will be entered into a competition to visit the Diversity studios in Essex.
In a world where women often feel governed by the images that they see around them and powerless, Beat offers support through the Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Public Lectures will be available all over London and the UK.
For more information on the campaign click here.
For information on eating disorders click here.