Charity event to celebrate the beauty of everyBODY while raising awareness of an all-too-often silent killer
Posted Feb 2, 2012 By Hollie Pratt-CampbellEMC Events - Eating disorder awareness week will once again be recognized in the Limestone City this February with the second annual EveryBODY's Beautiful Charity Event, to be held the evening of Feb. 10 at Zappas Lounge.
Last year's event raised $6,000 for the Hotel Dieu Hospital's Eating Disorders Clinic and drew a crowd of 250 people. This year's is shaping up to be even bigger, with a goal of raising $10,000. Once again, 100 per cent of money raised will go to the clinic.
Organizer Pam Fountas says she has received amazing support from the community, as local businesses and organizations have been clamouring to help promote the event and to donate time and silent auction items.
In addition to the silent auction, this year's event will include a presentation about eating disorders, a fashion show featuring local fashions on men and women of every age and body type, and live music from the Rain Kings.
"We'll bring the awareness to it, but then we're going to have fun," says Fountas. "It's not a Debbie Downer of an evening - it's to celebrate."
Fountas was originally inspired to organize EveryBODY's Beautiful because of her own past struggles with disordered eating, which lasted for nearly 10 years.
"For me the personal has really become the political," she says, explaining that gradually she began to realize she was not being served by all the frustration and negativity.
After all, Fountas notes that how a person feels about their body affects their overall self-esteem, and is thus very much tied into every facet of their life.
"What it came down to for me (was the desire to be) completely free," she says. "When we don't have these constraints to feel we need to look a certain way, eat certain things, etc., we start to live fully in our own bodies and fully in our own lives."
Raising awareness of the subject is one of the main goals of EveryBODY's Beautiful. Fountas points out that not only is there a stigma surrounding eating disorders in our society, but also a general misrepresentation of them in the media.
"We all see the covers of magazines, and it has to take a picture of an emaciated girl for anyone to talk about an eating disorder...(But) having a negative relationship with food and your body isn't necessarily always visible from the outside."
Fountas says that a recent study found that in Southeastern Ontario, disordered eating symptoms affect 27 per cent of women and two per cent of men between the ages 18 and 24. Furthermore, eating disorders are known to have the highest mortality rate of all mental health illnesses.
"That speaks volumes to me, and I think people need to be made aware of it," she says.
The idolizing of very thin, unattainable bodies in the fashion and entertainment industries is one of the more obvious ways in which our culture contributes to the problem. Setting a positive example for children, says Fountas, is a good way to lessen the prevalence of eating disorders in the future.
"We're living in a society where the number one fear for four out of five seven-year -old (girls) in North America is being fat. (I ask people), do you want to contribute to a society that's instilling this fear? Or do you want to do otherwise by challenging yourself to think differently about your own body and choosing your words carefully, because those things go a long way."
Helping other women develop positive relationships with their bodies is also an important part of Fountas' everyday life through her work as a personal trainer and bootcamp coach.
"I aspire to be a trainer who creates an environment that's very supportive and positive," she says. "If you come to see me and you have a motivator of looking a certain way, that's fine...but I'm going to challenge you to think of so many other reasons that you're going to commit to your well-being."
She adds that it's extremely important to her to continue to be transparent about her own struggles while working toward this cause:
"If the fact that I was able to get to the other side puts one person (with an eating disorder) at ease when they go to bed at night, and gives another person the belief that they can form a better relationship with their body, I've done my job."
EveryBODY's Beautiful begins at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 10 at Zappas Lounge. Tickets are $20 and are available at Zappas. For more information, please visit the event's Facebook page under "The 2nd Annual EveryBODY's Beautiful Charity Event."
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