Mission Statement
The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness seeks to establish easily accessible programs across the nation that allow children and young adults the opportunity to learn about eating disorders and the positive effects of a healthy body image. Furthermore, our aim is to disseminate educational information to parents and caregivers about the warning signs, dangers, and consequences of anorexia, bulimia, and other related disorders.
Description
According to the National Institute of Health, eating disorders affect 1 in 5 girls, and approximately 1 in 18 men in the United States. The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness (The Alliance) strives to dispel potential body image and eating disorder issues, aid and empower those currently struggling, and instill a sense of self-love, self-acceptance, and self- confidence. Through its presentations and contact with young women and men throughout Palm Beach County and South Florida, The Alliance seeks to establish easily accessible programs that allow children and young adults the opportunity to learn about eating disorders and the positive effects of a healthy body image. Furthermore our aim is to disseminate education information to parents and caregivers about the warning signs, danger, and consequences of anorexia, bulimia, and other related disorders.
We live in a society that reveres extreme thinness, coupled with compulsive over-exercise, and we have learned to view it as a symbol of prestige, happiness, love and success. Repeated exposure to our culture's unrealistic standards for body shape and size can lead to the internalization and belief that such a standard is acceptable and obtainable. Eating disorders have extreme physical and mental repercussions - including the highest mortality rate among all psychological disorders- and also act as a barrier for personal growth, education, and success. Until individuals learn to be comfortable with their own mirror images, they will continue to measure themselves against an unrealistic ideal. By building resiliency skills to combat the negative messages that they encounter, our youth will be less likely to fall victim to negative self-talk, low self-esteem, and ultimately an eating disorder.
