Art therapy group can facilitate professional and self advocacy efforts to increase awareness of eating disorders. Imagine Me Beyond What You See art competition was the catalyst for the development of an art therapy group to raise awareness for eating disorders and body image by reimagining a mannequin. Participant testimonials demonstrate how…

"Sharing the Douglas/Sharing the Museum," a collaboration program of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), the Douglas Mental Health Institute and the Department of Creative Arts Therapies at Concordia University, serves patients from the Eating Disorder Unit of the Douglas. Participants eat lunch at the museum and look at, talk…

Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses affecting a significant proportion of women and a smaller number of men. Approximately half of those with an eating disorder (ED) will not meet the criteria for anorexia or bulimia nervosa, and will be diagnosed with an eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS). Until recently, there were no…

In this article, Barbara L. Fredrickson reflects back on two early papers--"Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women's Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks" and "A Mediational Model Linking Self-Objectification, Body Shame, and Disordered Eating"--and puts them into larger context. Both papers share an unusual origin story. To tell…

The author describes a sub-group of anorexic patients who present themselves clinically as "invisible" and "insubstantial". The concept of "invisibility" is understood in terms of primitive object relations. The underpinning of this dynamic is a lack of separation and differentiation from mother and a consequent effort to live inside her skin. The…

For humans, successful drinking is a necessity early in life. In fact, swallowing can be observed with ultrasound at approximately the 16th week of pregnancy. The fetus "drinks" amniotic fluid as a way to filter fetal debris and to help maintain the amniotic fluid level for its mother. All this "swallowing practice" in utero enables the fetus to…

Swallowing is one of the most complex movement patterns that people must use accurately throughout the day and night from the time they are born. These movement patterns are very closely integrated with breathing and movement of food through the aerodigestive tract. Malalignment or dysfunction in any part of these integrated patterns and systems…

Australian Swimming functions on meritocratic principles as athletes are immersed in a culture that focuses on achievement. Meritocratic principles are accompanied by a technocentric ideology where a "swimmer body" is a commodity "viewed as an instrument and object for manipulation" (Baine, 1990, p. 29) in order to achieve…

Eating disorders are among the most frequently seen chronic illnesses found in adolescent females. In this paper, we discuss school-based prevention and intervention efforts that seek to reduce the impact of this serious illness. School counselors play a key role in the prevention of eating disorders and can provide support even when not directly…

This paper is located in a larger study of girls' empowerment within the everyday context of school cultures. While much feminist research has focused on the "perils" of feminine adolescence, we are interested in how girls successfully navigate the transition from girlhood to adult womanhood. Thus the sample for this paper includes girls who…

The Female Athlete Triad is a syndrome of the interrelated components of disordered eating, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis. Sometimes inadvertently, but more often by willful dietary restriction, many female athletes do not ingest sufficient calories to adequately fuel their physical or sport activities, which can disrupt menstrual functioning,…

On 16 January 2002, the United Kingdom House of Commons Select Committee published a report entitled "Tackling Obesity in England". Drawing on insights from the work of Bernstein, Bourdieu and Foucault, this article will suggest that the report provides an example "par excellence" of the way in which "the body" (our…