She's not that skinny. Is she?

Why you can't tell if someone has anorexia just by looking. Read about it on my new blog, Brave Girl Eating, here at Psychology Today.

Photo © Steve Pope Photography

We need more FBT therapists!

If you're a therapist who treats eating disorders and you'd like to become certified to do family-based treatment (also known as the Maudsley approach), you're in luck. The Training Institute for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders, run by Drs. Daniel le Grange and James Lock, is hosting a two-day training in Chicago, September 13-14.

For information and to register, visit the Training Institute's website. Because heaven knows we need more FBT therapists around the country/world!

"My daughter's not fat"

This kind of nightmare is what happens, folks, when we have mandated "reporting" of BMIs and other ridiculous "measures" of thinness/fatness. Especially for children, who are still growing and who do not grow in a linear fashion.

This particular incident happened in the UK. But it could easily happen here, now that states like Arkansas and New York require it, and other states are considering it.

You say that this is an extreme case? That overall, BMI reporting is a good idea? Read these talking points from the Eating Disorders Coalition.

Our language around these issues is loaded and complex, because we have made it so. We've made fat a dirty word that connotes so many negative qualities: lazy, greedy, sloppy, messy, stupid, unattractive . . . . No wonder 11-year-old Katie Owen reacted the way she did. She's not the first, and she will not be the last.

Brave Girl Eating: Q&A, Part II

The second part of the Q&A on Sheppard Pratt's blog is now live. I hope you'll check it out. Drop me a comment if you're in Baltimore and think you might make the reading--I'd love to meet you!

Brave Girl Eating: Q&A

In preparation for my upcoming book talk at the Center for Eating Disorders at Sheppard Pratt, the kind folks there are posting a Q&A interview on their blog over the next 10 days or so. Part 1 is up. And if you're going to be in Baltimore on August 25, please stop by the reading--I think it's going to be an inspiring event.