National Eating Disorders Awareness Week begins February 24 – a time to learn about eating disorders, share a hopeful message for those affected and enable those who need treatment to gain access to the necessary, potentially lifesaving resources. Most importantly, it’s a time to promote acceptance and respect for all bodies of every size and shape.
What is NEDAW, and what’s its point?
National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (or NEDAW) is an annual campaign to educate the public about eating disorders and to engage in efforts to provide hope and support for individuals and families affected by eating disorders. NEDAW 2025 takes place Monday, February 24, through Sunday, March 2.
In order to better recognize, support and effectively treat eating disorders, public awareness is key. This year, organizers are asking you to “Get in the Know” and learn about eating disorders, get involved in raising awareness, and share information and resources.
We’re talking Health At Every Size® (HAES).
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, eating disorders are much like many illnesses in that they impact a wide variety of people of all body types and sizes. Body shape and size are influenced by many biological and environmental factors. You cannot evaluate a person’s health or tell if they have an eating disorder by looking at them.
Unfortunately, our culture does value certain body types and shapes over others. Individuals whose bodies do not align with these culturally valued body shapes or sizes often experience bias, teasing, judgment and discrimination. Many eating disorder experts and advocates support a more weight-inclusive approach to health that embraces the diversity of human sizes, has a broader view of well-being, promotes weight neutrality in healthcare and defies the belief that weight status determines health.
Health At Every Size® (HAES®) offers such a framework, holding that health is highly individualized and may vary over time. HAES offers an alternative to weight-centered definitions of health offering principles to guide individuals and healthcare providers to make health-related decisions. This perspective aims to encourage acceptance and respect for the broad variety of shapes and sizes of people, end weight discrimination, extinguish fat phobia, lessen cultural preoccupation with thinness and dieting, promote balanced eating, and encourage pleasurable physical activity.
The guiding principles of HAES include:
- Weight Inclusivity
• Accepting the diversity of body shapes and sizes.
• Respect for the diversity of body shapes and sizes.
• Refraining from idealizing one type of body over another.
• Granting access to healthcare for all body sizes.
• Acknowledging weight bias among healthcare providers and the barrier it creates for individuals living in larger bodies accessing healthcare services, which leads to poor health outcomes. - Health Enhancement
• Influencing health policy in order to provide equal access to health information and healthcare services.
• Encouraging personal practices which improve well-being in all areas of life including the physical, economic, social, spiritual and emotional domains.
• Designing healthcare systems that are inclusive and nonjudgmental. - Respectful Care
• Recognizing biases.
• Striving to end size discrimination, stigma and bias and recognizing how they impact health and eating disorder outcomes.
• Providing healthcare that considers the many factors which impact weight stigma like socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexual orientation and marginalized identities.
• Supporting environments and pathways to address systemic inequities.
What can you do right now for NEDAW?
• Whether you have or know someone with an eating disorder or you don’t, practice acceptance and respect for all bodies.
• If you do have a possible eating disorder or know someone who does, get help. See your doctor and be truthful about your symptoms and condition.
• Care coordination can help you find the right treatment, services and resources to help. It’s a free program available as part of our health plans. For more information, call the number on your ID card.
Learn more online.
For more information on eating disorder awareness, visit these helpful links:
• Listen to our podcast on a healthier approach to body image.
• Learn more about eating disorders in this blog article from Memorial Health and this short video from Christie Clinic.
• Get help with your eating disorder concerns from the National Eating Disorders Association.
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