This page includes questions that have been received by stakeholders regarding the Eating Disorder Safe principles and Companion Document, 'First Nations Perspectives: Strengthening the Eating Disorder Safe Principles’.
NEDC will continue to update this page as further questions are received. Questions have been deidentified and may have been edited/abridged for clarity.
If you have a question for our team, please email us at info@nedc.com.au.
There are many ways that a dietitian could apply the Eating Disorder Safe principles in practice. The particular methods chosen may depend on their clinical focus and service context. Some examples include choosing to make some language switches to more neutral terminology regarding food (e.g. avoiding 'healthy/unhealthy' in favour of more descriptive terms), implementing size-inclusive health promotion practices, seeking (and paying for) cultural guidance from Elders or other community leaders and engage in cultural reflexivity, or providing tailored nutrition education that respects the cultural and personal preferences of patients while considering their food security status.
Yes. With the Eating Disorder Safe suite of documents, the How-To Guides for Frontline Workers and Service Managers and Planners contain several suggestions specific to the early childhood space.
Other resources specifically for early childhood educators includes the Body Blocks program and supporting materials. This free, evidence-based professional development course is offered by the Embrace Collective at https://theembracehub.com/body-blocks-by-embrace-kids/
The intent of the Eating Disorder Safe principles is to be delivered across multiple different contexts, including those where harmful messages may be normalised. Over time, this will lead to greater consistency of safe messaging across society, whether in healthcare, education, media, sport, online or elsewhere.
NEDC recognises that this will take time, and that some sections of the community will be easier to convert to "ED Safe" messaging that others. This is why we will be working on implementation over the life of the National Eating Disorders Strategy 2023-33. We will be starting with some targeted implementation projects this year, including integrating the Eating Disorder Safe principles into the Workforce Core Competencies for Eating Disorders, taking steps to integrate them into tertiary education for health professionals, and a targeted project within the weight management sector.
We chose to use "Eating Disorder Safe" as a means of capturing the breadth of eating disorder risks and harms which may be present in the discourse and in the ways that people communicate about concepts such as health, food, mind and body. This includes reinforcing concepts such as weight inclusivity and body esteem, however it also includes other concepts such as food security and eliminating mental health stigma which are not clearly reflected within those body-related concepts.
The concept of "Eating Disorder Safe" isn't intended to preclude other experiences. Rather, it sets out an agenda for elimination of weight stigma in all its forms, as all forms of weight stigma may contribute to eating disorder risk and harm. This preventive approach takes eating disorders as its starting point, but is likely to have impact in other areas of mental and physical health and welbeing.
Firstly, many thanks for sharing them!
The suggested citation for the Eating Disorder Safe principles document (including How-To Guides) is:
National Eating Disorders Collaboration (NEDC). Eating Disorder Safe principles: Whole-of-community approaches to do no harm in relation to eating disorders, disordered eating and body image distress. NEDC; 2024.
The suggested citation for the Companion Document is:
Dr Alana Gall, Hilary Smith, Zyana Gall. First Nations Perspectives: Strengthening the Eating Disorder Safe Principles. National Eating Disorders Collaboration; 2024
