Time to dig in to some pre Christmas discussion. How do you prepare for the festive season without letting the eating disorder get its masterful grip on everyone?

How do you ensure that house guests, family members and well meaning friends don’t spontaneously send you into a tailspin with their comments about your food or appearance?

How do loved ones play their part in dropping diet dialogue from the festive proceedings and making sure the season is memorable for all the right occasions.

Debbie and Sarah use this episode to give you tips, tricks and tactics for making it through the Christmas period in good spirits.

Find out more about Wednesday's Child at https://wednesdayschild.co.uk/

Hope Virgo joins Abi and Debbie on the podcast episode this time, returning to our show to bring an update about her research work and the #UKCostofEatingDisorders Report.

For several months, Hope has been collaborating with MPs like Kate Parminster, Gillian Keegan, Wera Hobhouse and John McDonnell in an effort to see a greater spotlight placed on the stark reality of eating disorder ‘need’ as it stands in the UK today.

We chat to Hope about how the report was received in Parliament, how she feels about the findings, whether she remains optimistic, and what she envisages for the next stage in her campaigning efforts.

You’ll also hear us discuss the ever more apparent need for greater education around eating disorders in society generally, and the ongoing efforts – among the likes of Wednesday’s Child – to ensure that stigma, bias and false perception continue to be challenged around who suffers and why.

If you’d like to pick up on anything you hear in this episode, please email [email protected]

Find out more about Wednesday's Child at https://wednesdayschild.co.uk/

This week on the podcast, we ask why it is that so much of society is still convinced that an eating disorder is best personified by the skinny body of a younger female.

To help us navigate that, Debbie is joined by Adam Fare and Abi Reynolds, both of whom are able to give very different perspectives about what it feels like to put your head above the parapet and ask for help – when perhaps the world doesn’t see you as being an ‘obvious’ candidate for such an illness.

We talk gender, race, age, health at every size, eating disorders in pregnancy, and the many different badges of an eating disorder, and whether one ‘label’ has more empathy or attention than another.

We’d love to hear your own experiences of accessing help and support in any size of body, at any age and as a person of any gender.

Do get in touch. Email [email protected]

Find out more about Wednesday's Child at https://wednesdayschild.co.uk/

Healthy or harmful?

When you read a biography which you know to reference someone who has recovered from an eating disorder, why are you doing it? Is it helpful and insightful in such a way as to aid your recovery mission?

Or is it merely keeping you over-consuming eating disorder content, stories, material, brain-matter.

There’s a fine line, and it’s up to you to take the sensible precautions and avoidant behaviour.

Sarah and Debbie chat in this episode about cookbook obsession, staring goggle eyed at food programmes, and having every eating disorder and food related social media channel on your feed.

Why are you doing it? How do you get beyond it? And what would you change if you were truly and fully committed to being well and happy?

As ever, thoughts welcome. Email [email protected]

Find out more about Wednesday's Child at https://wednesdayschild.co.uk/

Achieving true freedom from your eating disorder, doesn’t come in half measures. It doesn’t come with maintaining a few comfortable little fibs to yourself, or trading a recovery effort for a sabotaging act.

In this episode, Sarah and Debbie talk about the cycle of deceit which keeps so many people from achieving a thorough deserved escape from the grasp of the illness.

They discuss habit breaking, shifting your own narrative, and why waiting for physical hunger cues should never be your goal.

As ever, insights and experiences related to this episode are always welcome. Email [email protected], and if you like our work, please consider a donation via our website https://wednesdayschild.co.uk/pages/donate

To mark Youth Mental Health Day, on Tuesday September 7th, Debbie, Sarah and Abi take to the mic to discuss the many and varied issues around how young people can be better supported and treated in the face of mental health issues.

Calling on teacher and parent perspectives, as well as bringing specific lived experience of eating disorders into the conversation, the trio give some great suggestions on how to broach conversations, access help, and make your voice heard.

This episode is not only pertinent to parents and carers wanting to help a young person navigate mental ill health, but teachers who might want to improve their narrative around mental health, or those who themselves have experienced poor mental health in their younger years.

If this episode raises thoughts and questions for you, please get in touch.

Find out more about Wednesday's Child at https://wednesdayschild.co.uk/

How do you maintain recovery when your Mum is a slimming club fanatic, your pal is a an Ironman athlete and your work colleagues are always celebrating their virtuous behaviour in avoiding ‘bad’ foods?

Sarah and Debbie look at how important self responsibility is in eating disorder recovery, and set out some helpful strategies and toolbox tactics for staying on track.

They also discuss the journey toward exercise for pure joy, spontaneous living and the abandonment of perfection-seeking.

If you’d like to comment on the episode or have ideas for a future podcast recording, please get in touch.

Find out more about Wednesday's Child at https://wednesdayschild.co.uk/

What the heck is ‘overshoot’ anyway? Is it a label you’re comfortable with, one you’ve been drawn into using because of your clinician’s approach to ‘target weights’ or are you in happy oblivion about the mere concept that anyone can ‘overshoot’?

Sarah and Debbie finally tackle a topic which gets mentioned so much in the eating disorder community, and often has an unhelpful effect on those attempting to ‘keep going’ into full and thorough recovery.

This episode looks at the absolute essential need to maintain a unique and personal focus on what true recovery – physically and neurologically – looks like for you.

We discuss feast eating and why it becomes an inevitable aspect of continuing to embrace real recovery (after famine, there’s always feast!), and we call for more healthcare professionals to really carefully consider how they articulate goals and targets to patients.

Find out more about Wednesday's Child at https://wednesdayschild.co.uk/

A timely episode on the pod, to urge you to avoid the potential pitfalls in recovery during the summer.

Sarah and Debbie discuss strategies and toolbox tips for staying on track as you plan for holidays, meals out and more socialising with friends and family.

Meanwhile – a little reminder to please please PLEASE only consume news about sugar tax and government food strategies with caution. Know that you’re on a different path…one which leads to recovery and wholesome health.

Find out more about Wednesday's Child at https://wednesdayschild.co.uk/

And so the countdown toward July 19th is well and truly under way – a date by which we’re told that in England at least, things will be considerably more ‘normal’.

But how does this leave you feeling, and more importantly, what does it do to the angry eating disorder which wants to keep you trapped and tortured?

With many people looking to return to workplaces, and to seeing more of friends and family, Sarah and Debbie explore some of the toolkit tips which will be so key to keeping recovery on track as we progress beyond the pandemic.

Remember, you don’t want to exit a government-imposed lockdown, only to stay stifled and constrained by one imposed by your eating disorder.

Find out more about Wednesday's Child at https://wednesdayschild.co.uk