In an effort to spark nuanced conversations about mental health, mainstream media has increasingly featured characters with eating disorders. Yet conventional representation of EDs has been dangerously monolithic, almost always portraying a thin, white young woman with anorexia. Depictions of disordered behaviors are often graphic and triggering as well. In this blog post, Victoria Brown addresses the media in an open letter, outlining how it can foster more constructive discourse around EDs and diet culture.

What does it mean to be a BIPOC with an eating disorder? How does a BIPOC navigate the tricky waters of receiving an eating disorder diagnosis and subsequent treatment? In this brave story, we are reminded that all individuals have the capacity to develop an eating disorder; we are held accountable to the fact that we need to do better to support BIPOC with eating disorders.

Project HEAL is hosting a Pride Week on Instagram Live! We’ll be joined by 8 magical individuals for 7 incredible conversations amplifying the LGBTQ+ voices in the eating disorder community. Each Live is a fundraiser for our LGBTQ+ Treatment Equity Project. We hope you’ll tune in!

Nica Selvaggio is a Chicago-born non-binary and queer human who finds healing writing about the things that often go unspoken. Trauma. Grief. Sexuality. Addiction. Adoption. Eating Disorders. Race. Gender. Identity. Power. Nica’s deepest hope in sharing their writing is to create safe spaces to explore the darkness that resides within us all, thereby igniting the light found in connectedness.