Wellness culture is disguising eating disorders, Canberra experts warn
Wellness routines like meal-skipping and exercise guilt can hide serious eating disorders from view.
Skipping meals. Exercising after eating dessert.
Counting calories. In today's wellness culture, these behaviours attract praise rather than concern.
Canberra clinical psychologist Dr Vivienne Lewis warns the line between healthy living and disordered eating is deceptively thin. "We've become very good at hiding disordered eating as wellness," she says.
A perfectly styled 'healthy lifestyle' can hide a very unhealthy relationship with food and body image. More than 1.1 million Australians are estimated to live with eating disorders.
Yet most never receive treatment. Canberra now hosts Australia's first publicly funded specialist residential eating disorder treatment centre.
It opened in September 2024 with 12 beds. It has admitted 94 patients.
Dr Lewis stresses that rigidity and distress behind the behaviour matter more than the behaviour itself.
- More than 1.1 million estimated
- Australians with eating disorders
- 12
- Centre beds
- 94
- Admissions to date
- 28.7 million dollars
- Funding sought
Why it mattersEarly recognition of eating disorder warning signs could prevent serious harm. Yet wellness culture now hides these signs as healthy living.
AustraliaAustralians with eating disorders struggle to access treatment, and a new Canberra facility is the first specialist public residential centre of its kind.
✓ Claims checked against the source. checked 11 d ago
