Status of Women committee  No, I agree with that. I think early intervention is key. I think supporting the community to be able to support the families.... We're seeing presentation in younger and younger children, but I also wonder if that's a matter of its being caught and addressed earlier. Some of it

Status of Women committee  I think part of the reason I had to do this is she was acute by that point. That was nine months from when I noticed something was wrong. Had my family doctor been able to provide me with information earlier on, I may not have had to take time off work. I may have been able to a

Status of Women committee  I think so. However, the way that caring for a child with an eating disorder works is that parents who are in the process of actually caring for their children would not be in a position to take five days away to sit in a classroom. The therapy or the treatment is actually feedin

Status of Women committee  I was just going to say—

Status of Women committee  Sorry, go ahead. Thank you.

Status of Women committee  In terms of removing the stigma, everybody thinks they know what an eating disorder is. I think it's about shifting that perception from the sort of after-school special idea of the eating disorder to the reality of what it is. I think shifting it so that we understand that any o

Status of Women committee  Linking parents to other parents who have been successful in working through FBT is one easy way to do that. There are best practices out there among parents who have gone through this, and sharing those is a very simple way to do that. It's a learning curve that's steep, but it'

Status of Women committee  How can we help them resist it? By teaching them to be critical consumers of media. I think the schools are doing work in that aspect. I think there is a difference between eating disorders and disordered eating. I think we have to differentiate between the two. My experience, an

Status of Women committee  I think a focus on early intervention is very important for families. Often there's a gap between diagnosis and getting treatment. There's a wait-list time. There's much that can be done during that time in terms of education, in terms of support. Even linking parents to peer sup

Status of Women committee  There wasn't anything available in the community. The barriers I faced were my doctor didn't notice it, identify it, and label it as such right away, so my child got much more ill than she needed to be. Then when I tried to find community treatment, there was nobody in the commun

Status of Women committee  All of those, in short. F.E.A.S.T. provides advocacy and education to parents or any caregiver of an individual with an eating disorder. What provided me with the most assistance through the entire process of caring for my child was on-the-ground support, but it was virtual on-th

Status of Women committee  The narrow view of who is affected by this illness affects families deeply because the illness is very isolating. Caring for your child and the level of focus that takes means that families are often quite practically isolated during the care period. Also, it's isolating in that

Status of Women committee  I think what would be very helpful is to have first-line physicians—primary care physicians, doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists in the community—be aware of eating disorders, the current evidence around eating disorders, and the evidence-based treatments, so that when parents

Status of Women committee  She's 13.

Status of Women committee  She was diagnosed. She's in recovery now. She's not ill at the moment.