Recovery Support

2nd Annual Photo Contest of the National Eating Disorders Association

Many of you know that I am an Ambassador with NEDA. Many of you also know that I absolutely love NEDA! In light of that, here is a message from NEDA about a cool photo contest:

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The theme for the photo contest is the NEDA 2010 Conference Theme: "Building Bridges to Recovery."

Rules, submission forms and more information here: http://www.myneda.org/uploads/photo_contest_2010%20PDF.pdf

Deadline: July 30th

If you are chosen as the winner of this contest, your photo may be used to promote our conference, it will be prominently displayed at the conference and you will be entered in a lottery to win cool NEDA Gear, including a NEDA T-shirt, water bottle, and more!

Thank you for your help in “Building Bridges to Recovery!”

http://www.myneda.org/uploads/photo_contest_2010%20PDF.pdf

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Good luck!

Hugs,

Jenni

"Imagine Me Beyond What You See" Body Image Mannequin Art Competition

Are you creative? Do you want to help promote a healthy awareness and acceptance of body images? If you answered yes, this competition is for you. Here are details from iaedp™ :

Good luck!

Jenni

Narrative about Ed

Recently, I received an interesting email from Lindsay Gooze, who is a student at UCSD. She was assigned to write a narrative about a book and chose Life Without Ed. I am so honored that she chose my book as her inspiration that I wanted to share her story with you below.

Thanks, Lindsay! You are very creative and a great writer.

Best,

Jenni

Free Book Giveaway in Honor of Dr. Phil Show Appearance

Hi everyone! In honor of my appearance on the Dr. Phil show today, my amazing publisher (Thanks, McGraw-Hill!) is going to give away a free set of my books --- that's one copy of LIFE WITHOUT ED and one copy of GOODBYE ED, HELLO ME. Click here for a link to the show details!

To win the books, all you have to do is be the 3rd person to email your vision of "recovered" to me at jenni@jennischaefer.com.I look forward to reading your visions of recovered. Just a sentence or two would be great!

Good luck :)

Jenni

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week is here!

I want to share with you (below) a piece I wrote for NEDAwareness Week:

IT'S TIME TO TALK ABOUT IT by Jenni Schaefer

A woman binges and purges each night, yet no one-not even her husband of twenty years-knows. A high school student runs himself to exhaustion daily at track practice, but his coach doesn't suspect how dangerous his routine really is. A ten-year-old girl throws away her lunch everyday at school, and her mom doesn't know it. These are just some of the faces of eating disorders-suffering in silence day-by-day. It's time to talk about it.

As many as 10 million females and 1 million males in the United States are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Approximately 15 million more are struggling with binge eating disorder. Many more cases go unreported because sufferers are afraid to talk about it. It's time for us to help them break through the secrecy and shame. If we all start talking, maybe they will, too.

We need to talk about how eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses. While eating disorders may appear to be about food and weight, they are really about much more. Eating disorders are complex conditions that arise from a combination of longstanding behavioral, emotional, psychological, interpersonal, biological and social factors. Recent research shows that genetic factors create vulnerabilities like anxiety, compulsivity, and perfectionism that place individuals at a risk for acting on cultural pressures and messages to meet the unrealistic thin ideal-triggering destructive diet and exercise behaviors.

In the United States, we are inundated with messages-from radio and television to uninformed healthcare professionals-telling us that to be happy and successful, we must fit into society's impossible beauty standards. Eighty percent of all ten year olds are afraid of being fat. Eating disorders are on the rise and do not discriminate by age, sex, ethnicity, culture, or anything else. Tragically, over one person's lifetime, at least 50,000 individuals will die as a direct result of eating disorders. This must stop. We must take preventative action and advocate for better access to treatment. People can and do fully recover from eating disorders. I know, because I broke through the silence in my own life years ago. I told someone about my eating disorder, got professional help, and after years of hard work, I am healthy and happy today. I started talking, and I got better. Let's all start talking about eating disorders and recovery. Let's share the truth. It's time.

Visit www.myneda.org and learn about NEDAwareness Week 2010, February 21-27. Helpline: 800 931-2237

To see my list of appearances during the rest of this week (College Station TX and Philadelphia PA), please visit : http://www.jennischaefer.com/hello-wheres-jenni.htm I'd love to meet you in person!

Best,

Jenni

Event in Boulder, CO AND An Inspirational Story

If you live in or around Boulder, Colorado, please join me for a FREE event this Thursday, January 28th.  Details: http://www.jennischaefer.com/hello-wheres-jenni.htm

I recently met an amazing woman named Jennifer Garcia. She said I could share a story she wrote for her high school paper. Thanks, Jennifer! Here it is:

Houston Event AND Goodbye Ana

If you live in or around Houston, Texas, please join me for a FREE event this Wednesday, January 13th.  Details: http://www.jennischaefer.com/hello-wheres-jenni.htm

I am blessed to receive messages everyday from women and men who are facing and overcoming eating disorders. Many people want to share their stories and write books like I have done. I recently heard from Kate Le Page about her personal journey. With Kate's permission, I am going to share some of what she wrote to me:

Happy Holidays!

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season. I am in Texas with my family. It actually snowed today--in Texas! Of course, it was sunny after ten minutes of snow. That's Texas weather for you!

I have received lots of emails from people asking about recovery support during the holidays. Here are a few cool links:

How Do We Get From Here to There?

My friend and colleague, Rich Whitman, COO of La Hacienda Treatment Center, recently shared with me the words below. I think his message of living in the moment and doing the next right thing is very appropriate and helpful for the holiday season. Thanks, Rich, for letting me share your words here!

In this fast passed world that we live in, it seems like more and more people want to get from here to there. The question is really not how we get from here to there, but why?  What are our intentions? 

Is it just to get all that you can --- like a raise, a bigger house, or a new car?  If these are your goals and how you measure success, then I can almost assure you that you will be successful.  Remember: I said “successful,” not happy. So many of us think that if we can get what we want, all will be good. And we will have arrived. 

Arrived where?  Will you be happy there?  Will you want to stay there?  At who’s or what expense did your great arrival cost?

I was recently in a 12-step meeting listening as people were sharing about their recovery.  In almost every case, those who shared talked about being “right where God wanted them to be.” They said things like, “I am learning to give rather than take,” and  “I have taken what has been given to me so that I might share it with others.” 

These people know where they have come from and where they are now.  Some are doctors, and others dig ditches or work in local coffee shops.  They are stay-at-home moms, working dads, someone’s son or daughter, brother or sister. The important thing is that they are all there for one another, happy where they are. They don’t want to go back to where they came from.

Someone once said that we must be in the here and the now. I have learned over the years to be content right where I am.  I know on any given day if I am in the will of the Father, He has something for me to do where I will be useful and at that given time, I know I have arrived. When I have finished with that task, I will move on to the “next right thing” He has in store for me.

- Rich Whitman, COO, La Hacienda Treatment Center

National Magazine Story Looking for Participants

My friend is writing a story for a national magazine about the social aspect of eating disorders and she's looking for young women who suffered from an ED or disordered eating WHILE their friend was suffering from one too—and their ED was influenced or made worse by their friends' ED in some way.

Maybe you and your friend were diet buddies who got carried away. Maybe you were always competitive about everything and when one of you developed an ED, you were competitive about that too. Maybe all your friends talked about was how much/little they were eating, so you felt gross just for eating ANYTHING. Or maybe feeling abandoned by a friend suffering from a serious ED influenced you to find comfort in food or food rituals...

If one of these descriptions sounds like you, you're age 18-21 (16 and 17 are okay with signed parental consent), and you'd like to share your story and help thousands of other young women (you must be willing to use your real name and photo, but your friends' names will be changed), please email her directly at mkhidekel@hotmail.com for more information.

Thanks so much!

Jenni