Why I am donating the first 8 x royalties to eating disorder charities

Some authors give away books for free, but I've decided to donate the first 8 x royalties to two of my favourite eating disorder charities: Men Get Eating Disorders Too and FEAST (Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders) (which also runs the awesome forum: Around The Dinner Table for parents and carers of young people with eating disorders).


The first charity - UK-based Men Get Eating Disorders Too - has always been fantastic in supporting this blog and, more recently, in promoting my books. And, of course, the charity does an amazing job; raising awareness of eating disorders in men and boys in a world where eating disorders are still very much associated with girls.

The second charity - FEAST, and its ATDT forum - were a lifeline for me during the dark days of my son's anorexia. But the bad news is that I didn't discover FEAST and ATDT until March 2010, some eight months after Ben's anorexia first began to emerge, and then it was just by chance when I was googling one day.

I don't want this to happen to other families.

This is why I promote FEAST and ATDT so much throughout my (soon to be published) new book: "Please eat... A mother's struggle to free her teenage son from anorexia". As well as telling our story - before, during and after Ben's eating disorder - one of the primary drivers of this book is to point families to invaluable resources like FEAST and ATDT. Indeed the book is peppered with references to this awesome charity.

I don't want other families to have to struggle alone for so many, many months like we did. Through my book, I want them to be able to go straight to the resources that can help them.

Oh, and the wonderful Laura Collins, founder of FEAST, is reviewing my new book as I write!!