Posts Tagged “Media”

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing, she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi, you can find her on Twitter.

We live in a world where almost everyone understands how popular social media is. But not everyone takes the time to think about how powerful it is. With billions of active users on some type of social media platform across the globe, it’s one of the most influential factors in our society today.

In some cases, that can be a good thing. In others, it’s not.

Social media influences everything from fashion and music to viral trends and marketing techniques. It also can greatly influence your health. Again, that can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you choose to follow and believe.

Episode description:

Maddy Walters is a psychology student passionate about eating disorder research and advocacy. She brings her passion and personal experience to this episode of Peace Meal to help us examine the intersection of social media and eating disorder recovery. We explore what it’s like to share your recovery online and to engage with others sharing theirs.

Maddy reflects on what she’s learned by creating a recovery Instagram account and how her recovery has evolved in the time since she did. Highlighting the key benefits and challenges of participating in an online recovery community, she offers insight into both the rewarding and tricky parts. She emphasizes the importance of protecting and prioritizing recovery—online and off—and leaves us with practical strategies for others trying to heal in a social media world.

Eating disorder stories are often told with a “before” and an “after.”

Sick and well. Unhealthy and healthy. Ill and recovered.

At one end of the spectrum are those sick (“sick enough”) for care, and at the other, those celebrating complete freedom from their illness. Often in celebrity coverage, it’s either speculation that a star is “too thin”—a problematic conflation of weight and health, to be sure—or a bold declaration of self-acceptance and body positivity from someone who has seemingly put the issues behind them.

Love your body. Accept yourself. Feel good in your skin.

The body positivity community promotes self-love and self-acceptance. It encourages us to treat our bodies gently, with compassion and care, and to avoid criticizing, shaming, or punishing them for any perceived flaws. We define body positivity in many ways, but our definitions are often similar in the body they describe: our own. Our body image is the focus.

As we work to develop a positive body image, it is important that we practice extending the same respect, acceptance, and compassion to other bodies as well. This includes all bodies—the bodies of our friends and family members, of strangers, peers, and acquaintances, and of celebrities and public figures we’ll never see in everyday life. We need to see beyond these appearances and question the way we view and talk about them.

At The Emily Program we spend a lot of time looking ahead. To hope and healing. To expanded access to care for people with eating disorders. To advanced awareness, education, and treatment. Our vision is a future of peaceful relationships with food, weight, and body, where anyone affected by an eating disorder can experience full, lifelong recovery.

As we work to heal the future, we also acknowledge the past and present. We accept where we are and where we’ve been, both as an organization and a culture at large. We pause and we reflect so that we can move forward with greater clarity, knowledge, and compassion.

To that end, we are using the start of this new decade to reflect on the previous decade in the world of eating disorders. The 2010s witnessed changes in the fields of eating disorder awareness, research, and care, as well as the culture surrounding them.

Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses, caused by a combination of environmental, biological, and psychological factors. While our environment is only a part of the equation, it is important to look at the ways it does contribute, and what we can do to change it.