Dr Beth Shelton is a psychologist and long-time director of the National Eating Disorder Collaboration (NEDC), leading a team that develops national standards for preventing and treating eating disorders and works actively to build the system of care. As a highly respected professional in the field, we asked Beth to explain the different diagnoses for eating disorders, the possible causes, and what she believes constitutes “normal” eating. First, Beth makes one thing clear: An eating disorder is...
Mar 14, 2023•25 min•Season 3Ep. 11
We’re all subject to continuous appearance-based pressures which impact our self-worth. The LGBTQIA+ community is no different. In fact, it’s a community that faces unique challenges regarding pressures that affect body image. And, for some people, it can escalate during Mardi Gras season. “People will go on a big shred or a big diet for the month,” says one of Australia’s most popular LGBTQIA+ content creators, Matt, also known as Alright Hey. “As soon as Christmas is over, it starts. Mardi Gra...
Feb 14, 2023•25 min•Season 3Ep. 10
It goes without saying that we want to give our young children the best start. We also know from years of research that negative body image can impact almost all life outcomes – including relationships, education, and careers. So how do we protect our children from developing a negative body image? And when should we start? The answer could shock you. Dr Stephanie Damiano is a psychology researcher and an expert in this space. “We see quite consistently that around the age of three, children sta...
Jan 03, 2023•24 min•Season 3Ep. 9
The summer holidays usually come with some expectations. We meet the extended family for a holiday meal. We wear fewer clothes in the summer heat. We make new year’s resolutions pushed by the diet industry. We smile and nod at the inevitable comments about our appearance from well-meaning family members. And we’re expected to find all of this a joyous time of year. But it’s events like these that make the summer holiday period difficult for some people, particularly anyone experiencing negative ...
Dec 13, 2022•26 min•Season 3Ep. 8
The drive for perfectionism is unusually common in people experiencing body image issues and eating disorders. Perfectionism is quite different from the drive to improve, which is an appropriate and healthy desire. Perfectionistic people, however, believe that "perfect" is possible—and the problem is that it's not. This sets up the perfectionist for continual frustration and disappointment, which in turn leads to mental health issues, including eating disorders. In this episode, our host Sam Iki...
Nov 01, 2022•21 min•Season 3Ep. 7
In this episode, we sit down with occupational therapist Dr Elysa Roberts to discover why OT can be effective in treating eating disorders. First, what is an occupation? It’s generally defined as “any activity in which one engages”, which means it’s a lot more than just a job. An occupation can include eating, exercising, working, shopping, socialising, parenting, education, time spent on spiritual practice... the list just goes on. Occupations are all the ordinary and everyday activities of lif...
Oct 04, 2022•27 min•Season 3Ep. 6
As parents or carers of young people, we like to think we know what's important in young people’s lives. But there's no way to tell what's really going on in their heads. If we're trying to understand young people as a group--their perspective in relation to the world and the culture right now--it's even harder. That's where Mission Australia's Youth Survey comes in. “It’s the largest national survey of young people in Australia,” says Rachel Christie, head of their Centre for Evidence and Insig...
Sep 13, 2022•33 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Liz Dale is a Worimi Woman and Doctor of Psychology whose work involves Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s lived experience of eating disorders and body image concerns, as well as Aboriginal approaches to wellness and care. A holistic approach is becoming increasingly accepted as key to ongoing recovery. However, many of us steeped in Western European treatment models are still figuring out what a holistic approach might actually mean. Dr. Dale believes that understanding and appreci...
Aug 16, 2022•21 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Paying attention to your appearance is a very human trait. And though we talk about accepting our bodies and learning to love them, most of us still think about our image a lot. We're not the only species that groom,” says researcher and clinical psychologist Deb Mitchison. “Most species are interested in how they look so it's not a drive that I think we can expect to eliminate.” The problem is that parts of society take advantage of our natural drive to look and be better. They profit from crea...
Aug 02, 2022•32 min•Season 3Ep. 3
A few years ago, Isabella Davis impulsively took a photo of her body and posted it to her Instagram account. It was an act of defiance. She was sick of being told she wasn’t good enough, that she needed to go on a diet, or that she should aspire to a particular body shape or size. “My feed was just full of perfectly posed images, which are great, but it's just not my reality. And I was just like, ‘Screw it. I'm gonna upload a photo of my body just being a body, just sitting down; a body that's r...
Jul 19, 2022•16 min•Season 3Ep. 2
It’s the most basic of questions and the one most often asked on the Butterfly Helpline: How do you know it’s an eating disorder? “If you’re even considering that there might be an eating disorder going on,” says Dr. Simon Wilksch, senior eating disorders research fellow at Flinders University, “it’s likely there’s something happening that’s worth checking out.” Why? The problem is that a key feature of an eating disorder is that the person experiencing it often hides their condition and doesn’t...
Jul 05, 2022•32 min•Season 3Ep. 1
If a person experiences a mental health issue, most people know that their family is also affected in varying ways. In this podcast, we look at the impact of eating disorders on siblings– how they feel about their brother or sister’s eating disorder, how they feel about their sibling’s experience, what support they feel able to offer, and what support they may actuallyneed for themselves. It’s a complex family dynamic and one that needs to be handled with awareness - for everyone’s sake. Butterf...
Jun 07, 2022•28 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Before she was the CEO of Australia’s Mental Health Commission, Christine Morgan served for 10 years as CEO of Butterfly. And to mark Butterfly’s 20th anniversary, she sat down with Sam Ikin for an in-depth review of eating disorders in Australia. Their conversation included the state of awareness, research, diagnosis, and treatment options - first looking back to 2002 and then looking forward to 20 years from today. “It was pretty horrific back in 2002," she says. “Thank goodness we've moved on...
May 31, 2022•29 min
To mark 20 years of service to all those affected by body image issues and eating disorders, our new podcast looks at the past, present and future of care. Sam talks to Claire Middleton, the desperate mum who started Butterfly from her kitchen table and in doing so changed hundreds of thousands of lives. He also talks to Shannon Calvert, who lived with an eating disorder for 30 years and has become a career advocate for the voice of lived experience. She currently serves on the Australian Govern...
May 03, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 11
The teenage years can be fun and exciting but they’re also a period when we’re particularly vulnerable to body image concerns. Young people are developmentally inclined to compare themselves to others, but this developmental drive is intensified by external influences, including the constant presence of social media that showcases unrealistic body ideals. Dr Justin Coulson is one of Australia's most trusted parenting experts and the host of . He says developing body acceptance can help teens to ...
Apr 19, 2022•27 min
The relationship between autism and eating disorders is not well known but it's surprisingly common. It's so common that some of Australia's top clinicians recommend everyone who lives with an eating disorder take an autism test. "Somewhere between 30 and 35 per cent of individuals with eating disorders may actually also be autistic, but it's likely to have not been diagnosed prior to the onset of the eating disorder," says Dr Amy Talbot, clinical psychologist and director of the Talbot Centre. ...
Apr 05, 2022•27 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Kai Schweizer, who identifies as gender diverse, first joined the Butterfly podcast in 2020 for the episode Gender, Sexuality and Eating Disorders. Our host Sam spent some time getting to know how Kai’s emerging gender identity at an all-girls secondary school led to disordered eating behaviours. He’s now a respected specialist in LGBTIQA+ issues, including this community’s experience of eating disorders. "We know that treating your discomfort with your body, your dysphoria, or your incongruence...
Mar 15, 2022•18 min
It’s no secret we’ve been fed overly narrow beauty and body standards through advertising and the media for as long as both have been around. What’s less talked about are the consequences: Constant exposure to idealised bodies promotes body dissatisfaction, poor self-esteem and can trigger serious and life-threatening eating disorders. "We’ve grown up with it," says veteran of the magazine industry and founder of , Mia Freedman. Not only are most models and celebrities “tall, white, skinny, exce...
Mar 01, 2022•30 min•Season 2Ep. 9
The content we consume online can have been found time and time again to be a huge driver of body image issues. According to extensive research young people are particularly at risk. Social media, in particular, is packed with unrealistic images and ideals. These platforms can be an incubator for mental illness - including eating disorders. This has been a growing problem for years and it's why the Australian Government created the Office of the eSafety Commissioner. It's effectively the country...
Feb 15, 2022•19 min
Negative body image can impact almost every aspect of your life, especially your sex life. And while fulfilling intimate relationships is a key component of general wellbeing, the shame hammered into us by societal messages about what bodies should look like is too often carried into the bedroom. It can seriously mess with our sexual experience. “Self-judgement and self-criticism make us feel low, and when we're feeling low, we don’t feel particularly sexy,” says sex and relationships therapist,...
Feb 01, 2022•24 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Fat phobia is the fear and dislike of fat or larger bodies. It’s irrational, unjust, and often expressed in damaging ways. In fact, weight stigma is associated with several negative outcomes for people in larger bodies, including decreased opportunity in employment, income, education, housing, and medical care. The mental health impacts are also well documented: increased stress, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem – all of which are also risk factors for eating disorders. In our new episod...
Jan 18, 2022•26 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Social media influencer Katie Parrott uses her online presence to normalise our view of larger bodies and to talk about fatphobia, mental health, public health, food, fashion, and anything else that comes to mind. Katie spent some time with our host, Sam Ikin, talking about her journey to body acceptance. It wasn’t always easy for Katie to shrug off the societal pressure to subscribe to the thin ideal, or to get where she is now: a joyful and powerful equal opportunity advocate for people of all...
Jan 04, 2022•19 min
Jack Symonds never considered himself to be much of a swimmer. In fact, before deciding to swim the English Channel to raise funds for Butterfly, it was probably twelve years since he swam a single lap in a pool. Jack is the sibling of a beloved sister who battled an eating disorder for close to ten years. “They say that people don’t get eating disorders, but families do”, he says. “And in my experience, that was certainly true.” With this background, Jack was compelled to do something significa...
Dec 20, 2021•24 min
About a million Australians are going into this holiday season - which is often defined by feasting - struggling with an eating disorder. Many of those will be hiding in plain sight. They’ll be struggling but the people around them won’t have any idea because they don’t fit the stereotype. They don’t look the way people with eating disorders are supposed to look. It’s why experts say there are a significant number of people who are not being diagnosed. They may be unsure about what's going on, o...
Dec 14, 2021•26 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Dr Scott Griffiths is one of Australia’s top researchers in body image and eating disorders and a National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He’s currently involved in an ongoing study into the male experience of eating disorders. In this In Depth episode, he challenges the myth that men are not impacted by either body image issues or eating disorders. While people usually think that only young, privileged, white women experience eating disorders, the tru...
Nov 16, 2021•18 min
We know that treating an eating disorder can be complicated. But when you’re managing an eating disorder along with a co-occurring medical condition, that can add extra complexity. It’s quite common for eating disorders to co-exist with other health issues but it's often unclear whether eating behaviours are to appropriately mitigate symptoms or are a disordered response to distress. In this episode, we talk to guests living with coexisting conditions. Host Sam Ikin also talks to experts who hel...
Nov 02, 2021•26 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Psychiatrist Richard Newton is an adjunct professor at Monash University, the clinical director of a large mental health service (that also serves as a teaching hospital), and serves on the boards of Butterfly and Wandi Nerida, Butterfly’s residential treatment centre on the Sunshine Coast. In this episode, he talks with Sam Ikin about how mental health conditions, including eating disorders, often co-occur. “One of the challenges of treating someone with an eating disorder is identifying the co...
Oct 18, 2021•23 min
We live in a world where we’re constantly marketed cheap, addictive “food” with very little nutritional value, and we’ve all heard about the public health impacts of that. It’s a situation that’s led to a growing distrust of the food system and increased fear of food. It’s little wonder there’s rapidly growing interest in “healthy eating”, and it’s why the diet industry has begun to systematically rebrand itself to be more about health and “wellness”. But the industry is still fundamentally a we...
Oct 05, 2021•27 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Social media is a huge driver of body image issues and young people are particularly at risk. Packed with unrealistic images and ideals, social platforms can be an incubator for mental illness – including eating disorders. But the problem is worse than most people think according to Swinburne University researcher in applied social technology Dr Suku Sukunesan. Dr Sukunesan's research has been making waves in the Australian media lately as more people begin to pay attention to his disturbing fin...
Sep 20, 2021•18 min
With so many developmental and even physical changes happening in their lives, teenagers are particularly vulnerable to body image issues. Spurred on by social media, they’re constantly comparing themselves to others.Having a positive body image can help teens to develop self-esteem, self-confidence, and to develop socially. It can lead to better mental and physical health later in life.The problem is research shows that, consistently, body image is one of teens’ top three concerns. Also, the nu...
Sep 06, 2021•26 min•Season 2Ep. 3
