Reflections on attending the Australia and New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders – 2026 Conference
(Click here for a link to the event programme.)
by BEING member Sharon.
“Last week I attended the top eating disorders conference in Australia, the annual ANZAED event held in Sydney this year.
Even though I felt like a rogue patient who had snuck in uninvited (kind of looking the part with an NG tube in my nose) I was there as a lived experience worker. I may have had to create myself a letter with newly created letterhead to say that I work for myself in my coaching business as a peer recovery coach, but they let me attend. More importantly, I was also there with the eyes of a BEING member, not only my own eyes as a person with current living experience. I have Atypical Anorexia (that means I’m not currently underweight, so I don’t fit diagnostic criteria for Anorexia Nervosa).
And with those different sets of eyes at a jam-packed conference with a few hundred people and easily a hundred topics being presented, my brain was happy, but my heart was heavy with sorrow and even anguish. And that’s because I know what it’s like out in the real world, at the lived experience sufferers coal-face, far from the shiny surfaces of a 5 star Hotel, and far from the lofty discussions of academia. Many people with eating disorders are really struggling in many and particular ways.
Yes, there was lived experience represented at the conference, but mostly as shadows behind the data of the research results presented, or else as the blurry figures of people’s past experiences as some who spoke mentioned they have lived experience. There was a whole workshop dedicated to increasing the inclusion of lived experience in services. Yet, there was no substantial representation, no panel of living experience to bring any sense of the urgency of the reality that so many eating disorder sufferers are languishing, and the death toll is unacceptably high.
I did hear some reasons to have hope. There’s more awareness of the unique impact on males, on indigenous peoples, on trans peoples and those from other cultures. There’s more helpful accommodation of the different needs of neurodiverse people in some ED treatment facilities. So many helpful and interesting topics that made my brain happy.
One moment though, might help paint the picture of why I left with a heavy heart.
The Saturday morning workshop on ‘Strengthening Hope and Treatments through Shared Innovations’ had just ended. Two professors I knew from years ago were among the presenters. One in particular spoke of a great public health initiative in Spain, a dedicated hospital for longstanding eating disorders. He said that sufferers in Australia need help, and they need it today. The truest word spoken at the whole event, I reckon. I got to speak with those two professors for a few minutes. We were wrapping up the conversation (lunch was waiting) and I decided to tell them about the dreadful treatment I’d had in my local Emergency Department the week before. (I been told I’d be admitted for two to three weeks’ treatment for my eating disorder, kept waiting two days without treatment or a bed in Emergency, only to then be discharged and sent home without a proper explanation, medically worse than when I arrived.)
When I’d finished, both those professors hung their heads and turned to walk away without a word, perhaps just a ‘hmmm’ or a grunt of acknowledgement. They weren’t surprised, but they were disengaged. No comment. They too are powerless. They can only walk away and go get their lunch. It’s not their responsibility. They stick to their research projects, their lecture halls and their fancy conferences. But who is actually going to stand up and say enough is enough?
We need better, and we need it today.”