Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2025

At Action Mental Health we provide eating disorders support to people and their families/carers throughout the Southern Trust area, working with those on waiting lists as well as people at a community level. We do this in partnership with the Southern Health & Social Care Trust (SHSCT), ensuring that support is available at every step of your journey, once you seek help. This Eating Disorders Awareness Week, we want to remind people that they aren’t alone and that by working together, we can take action on eating disorders.

We’ve compiled some resources below for Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2025, including key information about eating disorders and where to seek support, along with personal feedback from clients and carers about their experiences.

“I wasn’t sure if this was something I could ever open up to anyone about. I had felt so scared and unseen for so many years that that just became my normal. It felt safe to me. That’s the thing I think people still maybe don’t understand about eating disorders – is that they can feel safe, they can maybe in the beginning be a way to cope. Deborah helped me to understand this and when I started to understand the purpose my eating disorder served, I felt a little less guilt about things.

“One of the things that surprised me most about support was just how easy it was to open up, but I think it really helped how warm and non-judgemental Deborah was. She was there to listen and was patient with me when there were things I wasn’t quite ready to look at changing. We were able to go at my pace, but she still challenged certain behaviours. I liked the approach of putting the choice back to me – and one question I still always ask myself to this day is, ‘Is this helpful or harmful? Am I choosing recovery or my eating disorder?’ This way of critical and rational thinking has been an anchor for me in keeping well.

“The biggest change for me was learning to view food in a completely different way in terms of the support I needed for my body, the biggest being learning all the ways food is need to support my brain in terms of memory and learning. When I was able to make small improvements to my eating I noticed my focus in my studies was better, I was able to manage the stress of the workload better and could plan for things much easier, rather than being overwhelmed and burnt out all the time.

“My eating disorder was the loneliest thing in the world. It made my life so small. Through support and so much guidance I’ve been able to reconnect with friends again and start to build up a social life, something I never thought possible. I’m starting to make plans for the future rather than just manage day-to-day and one of the biggest things for me is I’m starting to put myself first a bit more and recognise how important it is to check in with my own needs.

“One thing I would say to anyone that is struggling is that, even if your eating disorder makes you feel safe it’s also just keeping you stuck and preventing you from thriving in life. You don’t have to do it all on your own, when you get support you’ll learn how to cope in a better way and it will open all sorts of doors in life you never thought were possible. Recovery is worth it.”