I will say it again... BOYS GET EATING DISORDERS TOO!

It's Eating Disorders Awareness Week and, already, I've come across several references to eating disorders as illnesses that affect girls and young women. No mention of boys. Or, if there is a mention, it's only a passing reference. But, you know what? (And I know that most of my readers DO know, especially Sam Thomas of Men Get Eating Disorders Too who spends most of his waking hours trying to raise awareness of this inescapable and stark fact.) BOYS AND MEN GET EATING DISORDERS TOO!

It's Eating Disorders Awareness Week - so let's have some evidence-based facts, please.

It's Eating Disorders Awareness Week. So the media have dragged in various 'experts' to spout their stuff about what 'causes' eating disorders and how they might be prevented. It's a shame that, in some instances, these 'experts' aren't better informed. Indeed my network of parents (from the F.E.A.S.T. community) seem to know more about the ins and outs of eating disorders than they do.

So excited about meeting Prof James Lock next week!

Prof James Lock (co-author of the very excellent and informative book Help Your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder) is in Glasgow a week today for an information and discussion session on Family Based Treatment (FBT) for Eating Disorders - and I will be in the audience.

Thumbs-down to the policymakers at Leeds University Admissions

During that critical period between year 11 and year 13 at high-school, Ben missed a heck of a lot of school. During year 11 he was plummeting into anorexia and ended up studying for his GCSEs at home while battling with this terrifying descent into a serious eating disorder. He never, ever managed to get back into school full-time. In an ideal world Ben - a highly articulate and intelligent young man - was predicted to get AAA at A-level. In the event, he got BBB plus an A in his Extended Project Qualification. Considering what he'd been through, this was an amazing feat and one that Sheffield University obviously recognised as they pointed us towards their Disrupted Studies scheme which is aimed at people who, like Ben, "have experienced issues of a personal, social or domestic nature that have affected either your post-16 studies, or any GCSE subjects that cited in our course entry requirements". We supplied all the relevant information and Ben won a place at Sheffield, a 'Russell Group' University like Leeds University.

It's difficult being a mum...

... says Bev in the Understatement of the Century! This morning, en route to the railway station with Ben, I was thinking about it, wondering whether it'd be better to love less or not to love at all than to love a lot and care.

Oh come off it NEXT, that model is positively emaciated

Oh I am so pissed off with the way fashion models and mannequins are so ridiculously skinny and present this look as the 'ideal' to young women and men. And the model gracing the front of the new mini NEXT catalogue I've just been sent in the post takes the biscuit. You can see this frankly emaciated figure here.