Butterfly: Let's Talk Butterfly Foundation
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- Health & Fitness
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This is the Butterfly Podcast from the Butterfly Foundation, your national voice for people living with body image issues and eating disorders.
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Ouch: The eye-popping costs of an eating disorder
We often talk about the psycho-emotional costs of eating disorders for those living with them; but up to this point, we haven’t learned much about the costs to society. Now we know. Since 2012, there’s been a shocking 36 per cent increase in the economic burden of eating disorders to the people of Australia. In the meantime, 1.1 million people in this country are currently living with an eating disorder – that's an increase of 21% in only ten years.
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If you've experienced trauma you could be at risk for an eating disorder
We should let you know that this episode discusses sexual abuse and comes with a trigger warning. It's about trauma, which is an individual’s response to an event or series of events that have deeply disturbed their sense of safety, security, or well-being. While research shows a clear intersection between trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and eating disorders, too few health professionals include trauma therapy in their practice. Why? They’re concerned that by opening the “trauma box” there’ll be a worsening of symptoms or relapse.
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In Depth with Harvard’s change maker Professor S. Bryn Austin
This month we’re talking to a distinguished social epidemiologist and behavioural scientist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Her name is Professor Bryn Austin, and her research focuses on public health approaches to eating disorders.
Our conversation begins with an overview of the web that connects consumer culture, corporate exploitation, and the pervasive influence of diet culture on body image. “We’ve known for decades how harmful the consumer marketplace can be with diet culture, the diet industry, diet pills and supplements, and all the negative body image pressures that come through media, social media and advertising,” she says. “People have been writing about this for decades.”
The problem is we still need to more deeply understand–and do more to address—what corporations are doing to exploit diet culture for profit.
Don’t miss Professor Austin’s wise perspective. Not only does she share her thoughts on the complexities of the body image and eating disorders landscape, but she also discusses the transformative potential of strategic initiatives, including what her Harvard-based laboratory did to protect young Americans from predatory diet-industry profiteering.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PROFESSOR BRYN AUSTIN
READ ABOUT AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL EATING DISORDERS STRATEGY
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Under-diagnosed and poorly treated: Eating disorders in larger bodies
We’re talking about the higher-weight paradox, particularly when well-meaning health professionals can trigger an eating disorder or make one worse.
Not everything health issue is solved by losing weight, yet that is what people in larger bodies too often hear. Worse, numerous people living with eating disorders remain undiagnosed and untreated because the stereotype of an eating disorder doesn’t fit their reality.
Melissa says she had an eating disorder from age 12 but wasn’t diagnosed until age 22. In fact, her unhelpful behaviours were encouraged: “All that my doctors cared about was for me to lose weight,” she says.
Professor Leah Brennan of Latrobe University reports that eating disorders occur across the size spectrum and the prevalence of eating disorders is actually greater in people in larger bodies.
One problem, says GP Samantha Wyton, is that people in non-typical body shapes and sizes are too often made to feel unsafe and unwelcome in medical settings.
“We’re taught that obesity is a disease in medical training,” she says. But it’s a lot more complex than that. “We need to embrace the full spectrum of shapes and sizes, because that’s the reality of the human condition.”
Dietitian Dr Fiona Willer, agrees. “The effect of weight centrism, particularly in primary care, is that people will delay going to the doctor until they can’t avoid it,” she says. And that effectively creates an issue for all their health outcomes, not only body image and eating disorders.
Listen to Sam unpack this issue with our group of concerned and articulate guests, including their thoughts about how we can and must change.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE RISKS AND WARNING SIGNS
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PROFESSOR LEAH BRENNAN
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DR SAMANTHA WYTON
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DR FIONA WILLER
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR #QUIETTHENOISE CAMPAIGN FEATURING SARAH COX
FIND A PROFESSIONAL
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ANZAED 23: Still more to learn from the latest in research
At the recent Australia and New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders conference on the Gold Coast, we spoke to experts about new and groundbreaking insights into eating disorders. This episode is the second in a series of two.
Dr Simon Wilksch unpacks his work around the significant financial and emotional costs that families face when caring for children with eating disorders and, to improve outcomes, why he recommends that parents and caregivers receive support too.
Monash’s Courney McLean talks about the complex relationship between vegetarianism, veganism, and eating disorders, and the tool she’s developing to assess motivation for adopting to a plant-based diet. Her work points the way to improved diagnosis and care for vegetarians and vegans experiencing eating disorders.
Belinda Chelius, CEO of Eating Disorders Queensland, explains her evidence-based rationale for including lived experience practitioners in eating disorder treatment, and why lived experience has always provided the infrastructure for EDQs work.
Finally, Dr. Renee Denham, a child and adolescent psychiatrist based in Brisbane, describes the interplay between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and restrictive eating, and how we can identify and help those kids affected.
These conversations reveal the multifaceted nature of eating disorders and the innovative approaches being taken to address them.
Find out more about ANZAED
Find out more about Simon Wilksch
Find out more about Courtney McLean
Find out more about Belinda Chelius
Find out more about Renee Denham
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In depth with lived experience advocate Shannon Calvert
The key to understanding any mental illness is to listen to those who have been through it. Not only can the voices of those with lived experience of an eating disorder help those who are currently impacted, but they also, importantly, serve to educate the health professionals who will provide care.
The evidence is clear: Services that are co-designed with those who know their own situation will always have the best chance of success.
That’s why the voice of lived experience is being embedded in most new treatment initiatives, including the recently launched and much heralded National Eating Disorders Strategy of 2023 – 2033.
Our guest, Shannon Calvert, experienced a longstanding and severe eating disorder and through the ups and downs of her own journey has since dedicated her life in recovery as a much needed voice and advocate for others.
“Through my own recovery, there were health professionals that didn’t want to do eating disorders or didn’t know how to do eating disorders. It was too complex, too challenging for them. That shifted my perspective in terms of how we can do things differently", she says.
Today, Shannon collaborates with all parts of the sector -- health professionals, researchers, and policymakers to develop person-centered, compassionate and integrated health care for better outcomes for everyone.
Learn more about Shannon Calvert
Learn more about the National Strategy for eating disorders
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Customer Reviews
So helpful
I am so grateful for this podcast. It helps me to understand the issues which are presented in a calm and sensible discussion with some professional but not too much,
data in the mix.
Butterfly
Podcasts are a great source of information in an under resourced area
Up to date and informative
Respectful, helpful, up to date and informative show.