Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2026: why does community matter?
By Nikki Schuster, Chief Executive
Eating disorders are often described as lonely. They thrive in secrecy and in shame. Many of the people I’ve worked with over the years have talked to me about feeling alone while living with an eating disorder.
This Eating Disorders Awareness Week, the theme of community feels especially important, because it’s clear that recovery doesn’t happen in isolation.
Why community matters
As a therapist specialising in eating disorders, and through my work as an associate trainer with Beat, I’ve seen first-hand that while professional support matters deeply, it’s rarely enough on its own.
At Renew Counselling and Training, we’ve worked hard to build an eating-disorder-aware service across the whole organisation. Our counsellors working with eating disorders receive specialist training, but just as importantly, so do our wider teams. It’s important to us that everyone knows how to spot early signs, respond with compassion and help people access support sooner.
Early intervention
Early intervention can be life-changing. Research shows there’s a critical early window when an eating disorder starts to emerge, where support can be especially effective. Getting help sooner is linked with stronger engagement with support services, less disruption to life and psychosocial functioning and a better foundation for longer-term wellbeing.
Key to helping an individual access support earlier is the wider network around them: the people who notice changes, who ask gentle questions, who stay present even when things feel hard to talk about.
Community shows up in ordinary ways
Community doesn’t have to mean something big or formal. Often it’s quiet and ordinary.
It might be a friend who checks in regularly; a parent who learns how to listen without rushing to fix; a teacher who notices a child withdrawing or a colleague who says, “You don’t seem yourself, I’m here if you want to talk.”
These moments matter more than we realise.
Eating disorders don’t just affect individuals. Their effects can be felt within families, friendships, classrooms and workplaces. In the same way, recovery is rarely a solo journey. People heal in relationship. They heal when they feel seen, understood and supported over time.
At Renew, many of the children, young people and adults we work with tell us that our centres become part of their community. We’re proud to be a place where people can feel safe enough to start unpacking what’s really going on beneath the surface. That sense of belonging is powerful and creates the conditions for change.
Supporting parents
One of the most moving parts of this work, for me, has been sitting with parents and carers during our workshops and seeing just how much they want to understand.
Before each session, we invite questions. They come in quietly and anonymously but they are anything but small:
Parents ask about how to talk to a ten-year-old about body image without making it “a thing”.
About boys and puberty, height, muscles and gym culture.
About social media and TikTok.
About food, sugar, and what feels like secret eating.
About bullying.
About self-harm and how to respond without shaming.
About how to model healthy habits without passing on judgement.
Reading those questions is so moving, because you can feel how much the parents, guardians and support networks for these young people care. Most parents don’t come with confidence or clear answers, they come because they’re worried about their child, they want to help, and they’re trying their best to get it right. A lot of them are also thinking about their own experiences growing up, and how they don’t want to repeat things or pass certain messages on.
Just by showing up to a workshop, asking those questions and being open to learning already says so much. That desire to support their child matters more than they probably realise, especially when they’re feeling unsure or overwhelmed themselves. I think that is incredibly brave.
Widening the circle of support
Thanks to the support of The Prudence Trust and Stone Family Foundation, we’ve been able to widen this circle of support around young people struggling with food and eating. Being able to offer guidance, reassurance and practical support to parents, guardians and the people around the young person can have a huge impact on the individuals we work with.
When adults feel supported and informed, the young person at the centre is far less alone. When carers feel supported rather than judged, they can respond with steadiness instead of panic. When we widen the circle of care, shame has less room to thrive.
In the context of eating disorders, community is far from an abstract concept. I see the importance of community when I meet a parent at one of our workshops who is asking how to do better, or when our clinical coordinator chats to a family member who isn’t sure what to do next but wants to understand. Community is just people showing up for someone.
Keeping the conversation going
Sadly, not everyone has access to this kind of support, which is why awareness weeks like this matter. They give us permission to talk about eating disorders more openly. They remind us to look out for one another and they invite us all to play our part.
This Eating Disorders Awareness Week, I hope we can all take a moment to notice the people around us a little more closely and to think about how we might help make our communities more compassionate, more knowledgeable and more supportive.
If you’re worried about someone, you don’t need to have the perfect words and you certainly don’t need to be an expert. Simply letting them know they’re not alone is an important first step.
And if you’re struggling yourself, please know that there are places like Renew that are here to help. Reaching out can feel daunting, but you don’t have to carry this on your own.
