The site Healthline, which offers consumer-oriented information on a wide range of medical topics, recently posted its picks for the 18 Best Eating Disorder Blogs of 2012. I was happy to see that among this terrific collection of resources was Eating Disorders Blogs, a group of voices to which our blog, Eating Disorders News, belongs.
"The range of perspectives and topics covered by Eating Disorders Blogs is perhaps unparalleled on the web," according to Healthline. FYI, our posts appear both here on PsychologyToday.com and under Eating Disorders Blogs. The blog collection was put together by eating disorders experts Lindsey Hall and Leigh Cohn, who are also the founders and publishers of Gūrze Books, a specialty house focusing on body image and eating disorders. Lindsey and Leigh have been able to draw on their wide range of expert authors to put together a truly diverse forum for opinions and information.
From the emotional explorations of Why She Feels Fat by Johanna Marie McShane, Ph.D., to notes from the perspective of someone who has overcome an eating disorder (Jenni Schaefer's Recovered), to the reassuring voice of Joanna Poppink, PhD, in Women Healing Through Crisis, Eating Disorders Blogs is a portal worth passing through often.
Among the other blogs recommended by Healthline, the blog Eating Disorder Hope caught my eye with this recent post: Beyond Barbies and Baby Dolls, which reported on a recent study on self-sexualization in a group of girls in the Midwest ages 6 to 9. The results indeed revealed that at a very young age, a majority of girls identify the "sexy" doll as their role model (versus the "modest" doll), and as the type of girl most likely to be popular. The good surprise of the study, though, was that media influence on these young girls is actually not as strong as maternal influence.
For those involved in the push to make eating disorders a bigger public health priority, who are interested in the interplay beetween the eating disorders awareness movement and the anti-obesity fight, or who are interested in eating issues/body image advocacy in general, The Eating Disorders Coalition site will keep you up-to-date on the national conversation on this topic.
And because boys and eating disorders never gets enough attention, the blog Boys and Anorexia is worth mentioning, written by a UK mother whose bright, athletic son fell prey to anorexia and now, with the aid of a "eating disorders recovery contract," fights to maintain healthy eating and exercise habits.
Take a moment to tour all 18 of these sites -- they are well worth it.