Civil Service Award winners: Breaking new ground with support networks
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Gillian Whitworth won the 2020 Health & Wellbeing Award in recognition of her extraordinary commitment, courage and compassion in raising greater awareness of eating disorders. She tells CSW about the background to her nomination
Gillian Whitworth
07 May 2021
The past year has been a challenging time for most, but for those battling eating disorders it has been particularly tough. Gillian Whitworth has been a driving force in the launch of the Civil Service Eating Disorders Network and in February won a Civil Service Award for her work to raise awareness on an issue that is still a source of stigma.
4 weeks ago You don t feel like you re sick enough: Meet the Irish blogger fighting for eating disorder treatment
369 Shares
“There’s three public beds and 2,000 people with eating disorders in Ireland.
One of the more recent times Amanda Lynch was admitted to hospital with an eating disorder, it took her six months to secure funding from the HSE. The time before that, she waited four months. The first time she tried, the funding was declined. She was just never told about it.
Advertisement It was only when I ended up in A&E and we were asking, where the hell is this funding? And then they said it had been declined, she tells Her. My family had to go fighting for it and it was eventually given to me, but that had such an impact.
Columns By Gabriella Spina Mar 10, 2021 11:16 PM
You have drunk too much. It happens. But what happens next doesn’t have to. Your friends casually suggest you “pull trig” self-induce vomiting to avoid a hangover. After mulling it over in your head for a while, you decide to. But the next morning, your hangover is still there, and you have, without realizing it, normalized an eating disorder tendency.
National Eating Disorder Awareness Week passed just more than a week ago, but we should not only spend a few days educating ourselves on the issue – especially as college-aged students. The difficult transition from a largely dependent life to independent life laced with an incredibly persistent diet culture, harmful party culture and toxic academic culture is a breeding ground for eating disorder symptoms that cannot go unnoticed. We must continue to analyze these harmful personal and cultural tendencies that happen right on campus and work to quash them.
The Weekly Whip - Lords edition!
Welcome to the Lords edition of the Weekly Whip, covering the goings on in the Upper Chamber in the last week, and a taste of what’s to come in the week to follow.
By Humphrey Amos, Mar 05, 2021 1:03
In the Lords we get to grips with the detail of legislation and improve it; we take part in debates on a whole range of issues, and we question and hold government ministers to account.
For up to date information about the work of the Lib Dem group in the Lords, follow us on Twitter: @LibDemLords
Irish doctors lack training on Eating Disorders
Survey reveals widespread dissatisfaction with treatment
Susan Brennan, CARED Ireland
A lack of proper treatment for people with eating disorders (ED) is leaving sufferers feeling misunderstood and abandoned, according to new research.
In a recent survey of 100 people caring for someone with an ED, 82 per cent said they didn’t believe public healthcare clinicians had the appropriate training and knowledge to treat the condition.
Sixty-nine per cent said they were not satisfied with the overall service provided for ED patients by the public health system, while more than half (52%) reported that Covid-19 had increased the severity of their loved one’s illness.