February 20-26^th is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week

I know that’s a month away, but I want to give people a chance to be aware that an awareness week is coming up.

I have an insatiable appetite for awareness.  One week is a good start.  In January we had Healthy Weight Awareness Week.

People in the Healthy At Every Size (HAES sm) community: nutritionists, researchers, physicians, fat activists, and specialists in eating disorders joined together to spread the word that people of all sizes, shapes, and weights could be healthy or not healthy.

Weight Hate

I ingested article after article.  I learned a great deal. What I gleaned most, however, from my voracious binge reading, was that one of the unhealthiest things about focusing on ones’ weight is hating oneself because of what one weighs.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.      It may have started off as Breast Cancer Awareness Week and grew into the whole month.  This is a good thing.  A month of doing good deeds in pink.  Baseball players wearing pink shoes and gloves. Some yogurt has pink foil lids; during the month of October when you mail them in, the company donates money to the cause of battling Breast Cancer.  It’s a wonderful campaign…although…I’m not sure what happens on November 1^st if you still have those lids…I actually still have several pink lidded yogurts in my fridge from October. I’m sure the yogurt is still good, not past its expiration date.   I bought it on sale.  I don’t eat yogurt very often.  But the ads promised me I’d be eating red velvet cake or cherry cheesecake. I tried each one, carefully peeling off the lid to send in to the donation address (which was microscopically written on the back of the lid). With each new flavor  I hoped that I would be transported to that place of bliss that a good slice of cheesecake or homemade red velvet cake can take you to.  Eyes closed….mindfully eating spoonful by spoonful…swirling the yogurt in my mouth….

But in the end, it was strawberry yogurt.  Not the first or the last of life’s disappointments.  But now I have all of these pink lids in my refrigerator and I’m wondering if they still count because it’s January.  I did buy a pair of pink reading glasses in October (every month is Reading Glasses LACK of Awareness Month for me). I felt good that some of the money went to Breast Cancer Research. (They also helped seeing the address on the inside of the lid). One of my dearest friends from college is a breast cancer survivor.  Thin as a rail her whole life. Gorgeous, blond, thin, I…red haired, freckled, round; she got breast cancer when she was about 47.  Being thin didn’t make her healthier than I. She’s a survivor though.  For Dee, every month is Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Dee and I were inseparable in college. We did everything together. There was no territory off limits between us.  Every day, however, was “Deah is Jealous That She’s not as Thin as Dee Awareness Day.”  How unfair it was that she was thin…just born thin…stayed thin…lived thin.  We were so much alike, and yet the difference in our size got her all of the juicy attention. And when she would go off with someone for the night; that was her territory. Not shared with me, hers alone. She never flaunted it.  She accepted her body as her birthright and insisted that I do the same.  She was way ahead of MY time…it would be years before I could embrace my body as MY body and not chastise it for not being Dee’s body, or Twiggy’s body or Wilma Flintstone’s Body.

For God’s sake, I was jealous of a freaking cartoon character!!!!

Anyway, there is a day for this, a day for that.  A month for this, a month for that.  Sheesh, I’m going to start singing “Turn Turn Turn” any minute now!  (Too Late Humming it NOW).

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week

I understand the need to bring focus to a certain event, cause, influential person.  It is a societal need because people are so busy and wrapped up in surviving that it’s difficult to stay aware of things that don’t directly affect them.  February is Black History Month, May 7-13^th is National Teacher’s Awareness Week and my two personal favorites:  March 7-13 National Sleep Awareness Week and April is National Stress Awareness Month, (who knew?) I for one would like to see National Sleep Awareness Week be a month and Stress Awareness be a day…I’m already Way Too Aware of my stress…but that’s just me.

When we send out a Call for Awareness there is hope that the awareness will result in money for research, increased access to information and comfort in knowing that others are sharing your concern, even for a fleeting moment.  There is also comfort in knowing you are not alone.  That is one of the major tenets of the Eating Disorders/Size Acceptance DVD/Workbook Set Leftovers (shameless plug to my website but still pertinent).

My friends tease me because my idea of being on time is being fifteen minutes early.  I don’t know why I’m like that I just am.  It’s genetics, like my body…I accept it…so you’ll forgive me for sending out this Call To Awareness, a Month Early.

For some people Every Day is Eating Disorder Awareness Day, it is a struggle and a courageous battle.  Others need to prepare to be aware…because awareness can lead to Action and Activism and we need to make room for the yogurts.

February 20-26^th is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week it’s a start!