Why Pride & Eating Disorders? – by, Becky Henry, CPCC

Why is it important to talk about Pride during June when our focus here is support for caregivers of those with eating disorders?

I’d love to hear your thoughts after you read my thoughts as well as those of 2TravelDads.

My Top 3 Reasons Why Pride is Important for Families Facing Eating Disorders 

1. Basic human rights and safety matter to all people.
2. The data on the dangers for non-straight people (LGBTQ) with eating disorders is clear.
3. Love is the answer, not hate.

You or another family caregiver may be navigating all that other caregivers are, as well as supporting a family member who has a much higher risk of death due to suicide because they are not straight. We may not yet know that our loved one has realized that they are not straight and when we show respect and love to all people, we are not only being decent humans, we are potentially saving a person’s life who might otherwise not feel safe to come out. Human rights are for all people, even those with whom we don’t identify or understand. 

The ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders & Severe Malnutrition has a lot of data which you can see here. I’m sharing just this one piece to highlight the need for us each to practice awareness and acceptance.

• About 16% of transgender individuals suffer from an eating disorder. Transgender individuals are also at a higher risk of suicidality, with 40% of transgender adults attempting suicide in their lifetime, compared to less than 5% of the general U.S. population. With suicide being a major cause of death for those with eating disorders, this makes transgender individuals with eating disorders particularly at-risk.

Here is data on “Eating Disorders and LGBTQ Youth”  from The Trevor Project website:

1. LGBTQ young people experience significantly greater rates of both eating disorders and attempting suicide compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers (Johns et al., 2020; Parker & Harriger, 2020).
2. Among the broader population of U.S. adults, those with a history of an eating disorder were found to have nearly 5–6 times greater odds of attempting suicide compared to those who have never had an eating disorder (Udo et al., 2019).

I cannot say it all any better than Rob Taylor does in his blog on 2TravelDads, “Why Pride Matters: 10 Ways To Show You Love The LGBTQ Community“ and want to say that writing about this for you is one small part of what I’m doing for this Pride month. I’m wearing my Pride tee shirt and sunglasses as much as possible all month long while in Croatia and Slovenia. Yes, they celebrate Pride here too! Check out Split, Croatia Pride festival that was this past weekend. 

All we need is love is an understatement, and we also need action to save lives.