Day 3 NEDA Week: Count Your Blah Blahssings Baby!!

Count you Blah Blah Blessings Baby! If you are like most people, you thrive on positive reinforcement and disintegrate just a bit each time you are shamed or told you are wrong. So why do we give our power over to negative reinforcements like scales, diet companies, and the fashion industry which profit from telling […]

Third Time’s the Charm!

DATELINE:  October 21, 2013:  JOIN OUR CRUSADE! In March, 2011, I wrote a blog post for Eating Disorders Online entitled, Dear Michelle, about Michelle Obama’sLet’s Move Campaign.  In my article, I referenced  Paul Campos’ piece in the Daily Beast where Campos does a brilliant job explaining why the Let’s Move campaign has a rather large […]

End Bullying Due To Weight Stigma!

  Join us in celebrating and honoring #WSAW (Weight Stigma Awareness Week)! Need programming ideas to raise awareness of the damages that weight bias and stigma have in your community?  The BEDA, ANAD and MFI organizations are releasing a 20 minute version of the Beneath The Floorboards documentary film based on the true story of […]

BEDAzzled!

I just returned from presenting at the BEDA conference in Bethesda, Maryland.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with BEDA it is the Binge Eating Disorders Association and was founded by Chevese Turner in June, 2008 with the organization’s vision being: “To create a community where people have access to resources to help them […]

Binge Eating Disorder — The Bridge Between Obesity and Eating Disorders

Written by Robyn Hussa Farrell and Chevese Turner — Founders of NORMAL and BEDA, respectively. As we know, the nation is caught in the grip of epidemic health crisis, including both mental health and obesity.  Following extensive recent studies, we now know that mental illness (including addictions) is more widespread than previously imagined and is […]

The Circle Game*

“And the seasons they go round and round…” As spring approaches I find myself thinking about the cyclical nature of life.  This isn’t very deep or profound; the circular pattern of the seasons is a topic of contemplation, poetry, and prose with a long history.  Depending on my frame of mind, this repetition, or redundancy […]

The Narwhal Factor Revisited

You know the phenomenon.  It’s the thing that happens when you first learn about something or someone.  Perhaps it is a new word. Then over the next week or so EVERYWHERE you go…voila!  The word you just learned is in the crossword puzzle the next morning.  You are on the phone with a friend and […]

Your Body or Your Life

I am mesmerized by the human brain.  The old Euell Gibbons (or was it Marlin Perkins?) Mutual of Omaha cliches about the “wonders and miracles of nature” do not even come close to describing the remarkable capabilities of what some call our sexiest organ.  My attachment to my brain is increasing exponentially as I age.  […]