Eating Disorder Safe Principles

What is this about? 

Throughout the development of the National Strategy, NEDC consistently heard from people with lived experience, their families, carers and supports that we need change in the way that society broadly speaks about health, food, minds and bodies. Through our consultations and working groups, people told us about the importance of safe messaging being delivered across healthcare, education, community services, sport, workplaces and social media.

Consistent, safe messages can help to minimise unintended risks and harms in relation to eating disorders, disordered eating and body image distress.

What are the principles and how do they work? 

The Eating Disorder Safe principles are 19 vision statements. The idea is that each principle addresses a key area in relation to health, food, mind, body or harm minimisation, and that they all work together to create environments that uphold eating disorder prevention and harm minimisation. This involves culture and practice change, and needs to span a wide range of settings.

How can I put ED Safe approaches into practice?

We're glad you asked!

NEDC has developed a range of resources to help people translate ED Safe principles into practice across a wide range of settings. Expand the boxes below to find resources relevant to your role.

Don't see what you need? Contact us at nationalstrategy@nedc.com.au and let us know what you're looking for. We are also continuously updating our ED Safe resource bank to reach more people, so check back here often for the latest updates.

 Individuals and Families

Check out the How-To Guide for individuals and families for an extensive list of ideas to help you put ED Safe approaches into practice at home.

Need something quicker? We've created a condensed fact sheet for families with eight key actions for you to try.

 Frontline workers, managers and planners - includes health, education, fitness, sport and community service professionals

The How-To Guide for frontline workers gives a wide range of suggestions for ED Safe practice across the broad range of settings where workers have a duty of care for people who may be at risk of or experiencing an eating disorder.

The How-To Guide for managers and planners helps you lead your team, service and organisation in adopting ED Safe approaches. 

Wondering how to talk about food in the context of your role? Our factsheet on neutral food language has plenty of concrete examples.

How can you talk about bodies in safe and respectful ways? Our factsheet on neutral language about bodies has tips and examples.

Policymakers and researchers

See the How-To Guide for researchers and policymakers for key guidance on embedding a harm minimisation approach in your work.

Reach out to us at nationalstrategy@nedc.com.au if you have specific queries about a current or proposed research project or policy development process.

Communicators, media and relevant platforms

Check out our How-To Guide for communicators, media and relevant platforms for a wide range of ideas to incorporate into your news, content and related processes and guidelines.

See also: tips and guidelines for portrayal of eating disorders.

Workplaces - particularly leaders, HR professionals and workplace wellbeing champions

See the How-To Guide for workplaces for a wide range of suggested actions to boost safe and supportive workplace cultures and reduce risks to staff mental health and wellbeing.

 

How do the Eating Disorder Safe principles address cultural safety?

NEDC worked in collaboration with Southern Cross University and the Public Health Association of Australia to develop a First Nations-specific Companion Document to the Eating Disorder Safe principles. ‘First Nations Perspectives: Strengthening the Eating Disorder Safe Principles’ is a step towards developing culturally safe and aligned approaches to eating disorder prevention, care and healing among First Nations communities. It sets out a definition of cultural safety in the context of eating disorders, discusses key historical and contemporary issues that uniquely affect First Nations people and communities, outlines key Indigenist approaches to health and wellbeing, and sets out practice tips and case studies.

The concepts within the Companion Document have been woven throughout all other Eating Disorder Safe documents and resources. All approaches to implementing the Eating Disorder Safe principles should account for the specific needs and perspectives of First Nations peoples, recognising that they are active and important members of the wider society.

What’s coming up? 

NEDC will continue rolling out specific projects aimed at putting the ED Safe principles into practice. We will keep this page updated as new resources become available.

We invite anyone who is interested in developing their own Eating Disorder Safe Action Plan to use the templates in the How-To Guides. Refer to the resource links above to find the guide that is right for you. 

If you have a case study to share about your own Eating Disorder Safe activities, we would love to know about it! Please email nationalstrategy@nedc.com.au.

National Strategy 2023-2033

The development and implementation of the Eating Disorder Safe principles aligns with 14 key actions from the National Strategy, spanning Prevention, Identification, Treatment, Psychosocial & Recovery Support, and Workforce. For more information, refer to our National Strategy pages on this website.

With thanks

The development of the Eating Disorder Safe principles was supported by La Trobe University, Southern Cross University, an Expert Advisory Group and a First Nations Governance Group. We thank all members for their contributions, which have greatly enriched our thinking and will lead to much greater impact.

NEDC would like to thank the students whose research projects contributed to the development of the Eating Disorder Safe principles: Sachi Liston and Nina Grdjan from La Trobe University.

NEDC would like to thank students who have contributed to the resources on this page: Madison Bruhn from Deakin University and Zi-Chih "Arielle" Liao from Macquarie University.