The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness
The Alliance offers several free, weekly, therapist-led virtual support groups* for individuals and for their loved ones. Click on the links below to register.
The Alliance’s Pro-Recovery support groups are for individuals, ages 18+, who are experiencing or have experienced eating disorders.
- Pro-Recovery, Mondays 7-8:30pm EST | 4-5:30pm PST
- Pro-Recovery, Saturdays 11am-12:30pm EST | 8-9:30am PST
- Pro-Recovery LGBTQ+ ,Wednesdays 7-8:30pm EST | 4-5:30pm PST
The Alliance’s Friends & Family support groups are for loved ones of individuals who experience eating disorders.
I am not an asterisk
Signs of an Eating Disorder
Most individuals who suffer from an eating disorder tend to display the same characteristics:
- They tend to be highly emotionally reserved and inhibited
- They prefer routine, orderliness and a predictable environment; they dislike change
- They display a high degree of conformity and often defer to others
- They are risk avoidant
- They become distressed when in a stressful situation
- They are intensely focused on outward perfection
- They exhibit negative self evaluation
Symptoms of an Eating Disorder:
- Preoccupation with “feeling fat”
- Preoccupation with food, weight, calories, body image
- Skipping meals
- Eating alone
- Eating unusual combinations
- Cutting food into small pieces
- Consuming low and no calorie foods
- Binge eating
- Purging
- Laxative and/or diuretic use
- Rapid weight loss
- Frequently weighing self, sometimes multiple times a day
- Eliminating whole food groups from diet, ie meat, dairy
- Loss of menstrual cycle
- Constantly feeling cold
Book List:
- Your Dieting Daughter by Carolyn Costin
- Sick Enough by Jennifer Gaudiani
- 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder by Carolyn Costin & Gwyn Schubert
- Life Without Ed by Jenni Schaefer
- Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnston
- When Your Child Has an Eating Disorder by Abigail Natenshon
- Overcoming Binge Eating
- Geneen Roth’s books
Online Resources:
- Alliance for Eating Disorder Awareness on Facebook and Instagram
- Carolyn Costin Institute
- A Nurse’s Guide to Anorexia and other Eating Disorders
- Voices of an Eating Disorder
- The National Eating Disorder Association
- EDReferral
- MentorConnect
- Brave Girls’ Club on Facebook
- Rebel Thriver on Facebook
- Geneen Roth on Facebook
- Recovery Spark