https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
The National Eating Disorders Association was founded as a support, both monetary and physically, for those people and their families who suffer from eating disorders. I believe they are trying to spread the message about how severe and life-threatening eating disorders truly are, and gain national support from as many people as possible. I believe their audiences are both people who are conscious of eating disorders, and those who are not. By targeting both knowing and ignorant audiences, they are gaining numbers in their supporters, while also creating a community of people who would overall champion and fight for the rights of the men and women suffering from these different disorders.
The reason I chose this organization as an advocacy group for my project is because I am focusing on eating disorders amongst musical theatre majors at PSU. I am a musical theatre major here, our program is ranked in the top 5 in the country, and both my peers and I put a great deal of self-induced pressure on our physicality. We are constantly told by our professors that we are perfect and hirable the way we are, but it is almost impossible for us to think this when you attend any Broadway show and the majority of the performers are in some of the best shape you have ever seen.
What I am more focusing on with my project is eliminating the use of certain words to say that someone looks “good.” Quite often the men and women, including myself, will praise others saying “wow you look skinny today you look so good.” Or people will praise someone if their arms look a little more toned than usually. Not only does this give unrealistic expectations to the person receiving the compliment to try and maintain a certain body image, but it also effects the people around them who are probably also insecure, and do not have anyone praising their looks. This only causes them to want to purge or do other harmful things to themselves. By eliminating words like “skinny” from our vocabulary and associating them with “looking good” we would help to alleviate a lot of the pressure these students feel. This would only help their mental and help make what can seem like four incredibly difficult and formative years in one’s life not as hopeless or scary.