F.E.A.S.T. At The International Conference on Eating Disorders in Chicago 2018

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It was a busy week in Chicago for the F.E.A.S.T. community!

Staff, volunteers, and almost all of the Board of Directors were in Chicago this month to gather, learn, collaborate, and think about the future of eating disorder care and support, and what role our community can play in that bright future.

Our exhibitor table #212 was a lively center of activity during the whole Academy for Eating Disorders conference, an annual scientific conference put on by the Academy For Eating Disorders.

We held a "candy poll" daily to engage visitors, a new feature of our table, and a popular one.

candies from a member in Russia to add
to the lollies, sweets, candies, and chocolates
brought for our table by Board members
and Advisory panel, so we had
UK, Wales, Australian, New Zealand,
US, and Canadian yummy things!
Taking picture of the daily candy poll results

















Parents from around the world attended
workshops, plenaries, and Keynote presentations
about the current science and treatment
of eating disorders

On Thursday the question was: "What are the most important elements in ED treatment"
"Parents," "treatment providers," and "food" scored highly, over "motivation" and "insight." But we only gave folks two votes, and the conversation was very interesting.

Friday our question was: What term do you use?
With these results:
"Recovered" was the front runner
"In Recovery" second place
"In remission" only a few

And the last day, Saturday, we asked:
Eating disorders will fail to exist:
"In our lifetime" overwhelming favorite
"Soon" no votes
"Never" just a few votes

We were very happy, also, to welcome 17 new supporters to the F.E.A.S.T. fold: clinicians who wanted to keep up with our advocacy and information.





Greek colleagues, Maria Tsiaka and Angeliki Zormpala

Parents and other F.E.A.S.T. members were very visible throughout the conference, volunteering, on panels for workshops, being part of Q&A, tweeting, facebooking, and those all important hallway conversations. New alliances and projects were started, collaborations continued, and a few "Difficult Dialogues" as well.




Colorful food and drink at a birthday celebration for our Executive Director, Belinda Caldwell

It was cold when we all arrived,
but got better as the days went on.
Also, it matters if you're thinking
celsius or Fahrenheit! 

Australian Board members and F.E.A.S.T.
Advisor experience a very chilly 
baseball game at Wrigley Field 
the day before the conference.
Our Australian friends found
American baseball puzzling...






In our next post: The F.E.A.S.T. of Knowledge event on April 22!


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