Events
Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2025
What is Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW) and Why is it Celebrated?
Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW) is an annual event observed in Canada from February 1–7 to raise awareness about eating disorders, promote understanding, and advocate for improved support and care. The week serves as a call to action, encouraging public education, reducing stigma, and fostering inclusive conversations about these serious mental health conditions.
EDAW is celebrated to:
- Raise Awareness: Eating disorders affect individuals of all genders, ages, races, abilities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. EDAW aims to shed light on the realities of living with an eating disorder and the importance of early intervention and support.
- Educate the Public: Misconceptions about eating disorders can hinder recognition and treatment. EDAW provides an opportunity to share accurate information and dispel myths.
- Advocate for Change: By highlighting the need for equitable, accessible, and inclusive care, EDAW works to address systemic barriers in the healthcare system and improve support for those affected.
- Build Community: EDAW fosters connection and solidarity among individuals, families, healthcare providers, and advocacy organizations dedicated to eating disorder recovery and prevention.
Through campaigns, events, and initiatives, EDAW empowers communities across Canada to take action and envision a world where eating disorder care is accessible, stigma-free, and compassionate.
National Eating Disorder Information Center (NEDIC)
The National Eating Disorder Information Center (NEDIC) has scheduled some amazing events during this year’s Eating Disorder Awareness Week, February 1 to 7, 2025. Please visit their website for more information about their offerings which include support groups, webinars and training opportunities. https://nedic.ca/edaw/
Eating Disorder Awareness Week Events and Videos 2025
Emotion Focused Skills Workshop for Parents/Caregivers of Loved ones with Eating Disorders
Emotion Focused Skills Training (EFST) for Parents is an innovative, ultra-simple and quickly effective parent support program.
EFST supports parents by empowering them as active, primary agents in guiding loved ones (of any age, little, adolescent or adult,) through the behavioural, emotional and relational challenges of everyday living and relating, as well as through the challenges their loved ones face when struggling with a mental health issue, a physical health issue, or any other special challenge. This is an emotion-processing, skills-based approach that gives parents simple, practical tools that they can implement immediately in their family.
These skills include how to navigate the confusing world of their child’s feelings, how to work with challenges in their child’s motivation, and how to restore their ability to set appropriate boundaries while also restoring positive, productive relationships with their children of any age.
EFST-P for disordered eating and eating disorders addresses the unique challenges faced by these parents and recognizes that parental self-efficacy often plays a more significant role in treatment outcomes than the individual’s own self-efficacy. Interventions focus on empowering parents with the necessary tools to support their loved one’s recovery, including:
- Developing effective empathy for their loved one’s struggles (and for their own struggles as parents!)
- Addressing the “competing motivations” that create obstacles to recovery, in their loved one and in themselves as parents as they each face their own fears
- Making amends for past injuries and losses
- Restoring the faith they need in themselves to establish and maintain the “boundaries without judgment” that are essential for recovery
Monday, February 3, 2025 from 5:30 – 7:00pm
Cost: Free, Register by emailing [email protected].
Myths about Eating Disorders
There are myths and assumptions made about eating disorders, and Monica Arnold has provided a video debunking one of those myths.
Eating Disorder Awareness Week Videos 2024
Drs. Stillar and Emmerling spread awareness about Eating Disorders on Global News!
Eating Disorder Awareness Week
Parent, Caregiver, Spouse/Partner, and Family Involvement in Eating Disorder Treatment
Role of Dietitians at AWCED
Please join Erin Nelson and Piper Menini as they answer some frequently asked questions about the role of dietitians at the Alberta Wellness Center for Eating Disorders.
ADHD and Eating Disorders
Tamara Stuart, Registered Psychologist, discusses the relationship between ADHD and Eating Disorders.
Skills Training: EFST-Y Model
Join Savannah Beckman -Howatt, Registered Provisional Psychologist, as she takes us through her water bottle metaphor
DBT Skills for those with Eating Disorders and their Loved Ones.
Chantelle Jensen, Registered Nurse, shares some skills to regulate emotions using Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.
Myths of Diet Culture
Kassie Magyar, Registered Provisional Psychologist, provides some interesting thoughts to consider about diet culture in this video, Myths of Diet Culture.
Eating Disorder Awareness Week Videos 2023
Eating Disorders & Social Media
Join Darien in a discussion about body image and how social media might influence our perception of ourselves and our bodies. In this talk, Darien will also offer some tips on how we can mitigate the harmful effects that social media can have on our body image, and share some ideas about how we can manage bad body image days.
Redefining Fitness
Jenna talks about how to redefine what exercise means to you, how to safely incorporate movement back into your life, and how to engage in weight-neutral fitness practices.
Video release Feb 4th
ARFID 101
Join Natalie as she discusses the eating disorder diagnosis, ARFID. She will provide a general overview of the diagnosis, prevalence, clinical presentations, treatment and outcomes of ARFID with a main focus on adolescents and adults.
The Caregivers' Experience
Join Sue as she talks about research demonstrating the positive impact on eating disorder outcomes when parents are trained, the new recommendations for the Canadian Strategy on Eating Disorders related to caregivers, and how AWCED is shifting its practice to be more intentionally inclusive of caregivers. This panel discussion also includes a mother who talks about her lived experience and a clinician who talks about working with parents and why that has always been central to her treatment of eating disorders. It is a well-rounded discussion with questions from the participants following the presentations.