Latest news with #anorexia
Daily Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Telegraph
Glennon Doyle reacts to Ivanka Trump reading her Donald Trump criticism
Don't miss out on the headlines from Celebrity Life. Followed categories will be added to My News. US author and podcaster Glennon Doyle tackles life's biggest questions, the 'self-help' label – and the Trumps. Stellar: Your new book We Can Do Hard Things was created with the backdrop of a very difficult time for yourself, your wife Abby Wambach and your sister Amanda Doyle, who co-wrote this book and host the popular podcast of the same name with you. You were dealing with an anorexia diagnosis. Abby had lost her beloved brother. Amanda had a breast cancer diagnosis. What was navigating that time like for you? Glennon Doyle: My sister and my wife are my people. Maybe because I depend on the two of them [so much], I don't actually have many friends in a wider circle. I'm used to one of them being steady. When I got my new anorexia diagnosis – I've been dealing with eating disorders since I was 10 – I felt humiliated. Embarrassed. I couldn't believe I'm still dealing with this. I felt like everyone in my life was gonna be like, get over it. But it felt like I was drowning and I looked over at the shore and both the lifeguards were passed out. My lifeguards were also having their own moment. US podcaster and author Glennon Doyle has addressed Ivanka Trump's recommendation of one of her books. Picture: Getty Images Ivanka Trump, the daughter of US President Donald Trump. Picture: AFP Glennon Doyle (continued): It feels like a very bad design of life that when trauma comes, that's the time that we can't remember anything we know. That's the time we can't call up all the wisdom we've learnt about how to make it through. That sucks. Trauma causes this little mini dissociation. Unfortunately Abby felt the same way and so did Amanda. So we were just kind of staring at each other blinking. And this cool thing happened. I started writing down little sentences or quotes or paragraphs that we had said to each other on the podcast and sending them to my sister to help her through the cancer thing. Listen to the full interview with Glennon Doyle on Something To Talk About below: Then she started writing down things about grief for Abby. And we had this little file going around. And Abby started writing things down for me about bodies. We kept this file that we were just using as an anchor outside of ourselves, which is funny because I've spent my entire life telling people that they have all the answers inside of them. I'm no longer positive that's true. Three months later, my friend was going through this horrible break-up and I sent her the file we had about grief. And she wrote back and said, 'Glennon, can you make me this for all the categories of life? This is what I need.' And I thought, yeah. I actually can do that. And that's how it started. That's how the book was born. Glennon Doyle, right, with wife Abby Wambach pictured in Beverly Hills last November. Picture: Getty Images Stellar: The book is an exploration of 20 questions that we all wrestle with throughout our lives, and features conversations you've had with 118 'of the world's most brilliant wayfinders'. How did you pull that off? Glennon Doyle: Some of the passages are from texts between friends, but most of them are from conversations that we had on our podcast. Over time the conversations we had on that podcast really rewired our minds and hearts and the way we saw the world. As we pored through those conversations, we realised people are really talking about the same 20 questions over and over again from their particular slice of life. So all I had to do was to wrangle all these people and say 'How about this incredible, brilliant thing that you said be put in print?' And most of them were like, 'Great. I sound very smart in that.' The people in this book are some of the most open-minded, justice-minded, love-minded and community-minded people on earth. We've got a lot going on in this country [the US] right now. It really feels like the whole idea of self-help and individual optimisation has failed us. And so what I'm very proud of is that this book is about collective wisdom. It's about: we can't figure this out by ourselves, we have to look at the world from as many different perspectives as there are people. And I just think that's why it's resonating so much here. It's about the collective. 'I think she probably didn't get all the way through.' Glennon Doyle on Ivanka Trump (pictured). Picture: AFP Ivanka Trump, right, with her husband Jared Kushner in Miami in May. Picture: Getty Images Stellar: You're often referred to as a self-help guru. Would you agree with that assessment? Glennon Doyle: Don't get me started on the self-help. I have so many male counterparts who write about the same things that I write about, who write about power and power dynamics and life and relationships even, and politics and community. Do you think that any of them are ever labelled 'self-help'? My books will be in the self-help aisle. My counterparts, men, will be in leadership. Do you ever hear a man's work described as self-help? No, no, no. Because men, they're good to go. They just need some leadership skills. Women are just a mess, and they just need help with their little selves. That distinction is in every area, right? That's the literary version, but even, [with] our bodies, men are taught to bulk up [and get] bigger, bigger, bigger and women are taught to get smaller. Money. Men are taught to invest. Women are taught to save. Every single category is about men. Just get bigger, get bolder, go for it. And women … Self-help. You're not even ready to leave the room. Just get smaller and smaller and fix yourself before you can even approach the world. So yes, I have many issues with the self-help title and I think it has a lot to do with gender. The whole navel-gazing thing is so interesting. Like, God forbid a man do a little bit of self-reflection. I would like some men to look harder at their navels. Honestly, I think that would do us all a little bit of good. Stellar: In your home country of the United States, does it feel like a time when people are searching for answers and feeling more isolated than ever? Glennon Doyle: It's a nightmare here. It's awful. We're seeing our neighbours be rounded up in front of us. I see it with my own eyes all the time. I was just in children's immigration court watching two-year-olds represent themselves, separated from their families. My family and every LGBTQ family I know is terrified. Parents with trans kids are leaving if they can. It's a really scary time here. With this book, we did a tour. I didn't want to do that. That's so much 'leaving of my house'. Not just answering my door, but standing on the actual stages. The incredible thing was, I think we have this feeling in the States right now, a lot of media is being suppressed and so it can feel like you're the only one who cares or the only one who's afraid or angry or wishes for something better. And this tour was so important to me because it was auditoriums and theatres full of people who were so hopeful and so angry and so united and so beautiful. They say hopelessness is just the feeling that nobody else cares, that you're alone. And so that tour that we did with the We Can Do Hard Things book, I think reinvigorated a lot of us and just reminded us there are still a lot of people here who care, and who will not stand for what's going down right now here. Listen to the full interview with Glennon Doyle on Something To Talk About below: Stellar: You have used your platform to advocate for many causes, including speaking out against the Trump administration, particularly during the election campaign in 2024. Recently Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka posted on Instagram a picture of herself holding your memoir Untamed. How did that moment sit with you? Glennon Doyle: You're the first person to ask me about that. My team sent it to me. I was stunned. I just didn't process it completely. I can tell you honestly that my best guess is she didn't read it all the way through. There's an entire essay about her dad in it that is about how unbelievable it is that this man is being seen as a leader of what is supposed to be Christian nationalism. So I think she probably didn't get all the way through. But all I can say is, I hope that she does read it. I hope she reads it really, really carefully. That's what I'll say about that. We Can Do Hard Things: Answers To Life's 20 Questions ($36.99, Penguin Random House) is out now. Listen to the full episode of the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About featuring Glennon Doyle out now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
John Swinney pays tribute to Scottish woman who lost battle with anorexia aged 20
First Minister John Swinney has paid tribute to a young Scottish constituent who sadly lost her battle with anorexia earlier this year. The first minister attended a charity park run, which was organised by the family of Rachel Bywater from Aberfeldy, to raise funds for BEAT, the UK's leading charity supporting those affected by eating disorders, reports The Record. Swinney joined the family of Rachel, who sadly died on May 17 this year aged just 20 years old, at the event which has raised an amazing £7,500 for the charity. READ MORE: Netflix viewers rush to watch 'compelling' BBC drama series set in Edinburgh READ MORE: Edinburgh's first 'queer cafe' announces closure as owners say 'this is only the beginning' The MSP for Perthshire North shared a snap of the group together sporting their, 'Run for Rachel' t-shirts and wrote: "A special privilege to join the family of Rachel Bywater - one of my constituents who faced an eating disorder and sadly died recently aged only 20 - to run a 5k and raise funds for Beat (Eating Disorders). "Wonderful to see so many in the #Aberfeldy community supporting today." Her father Dave Bywater added: "Thank you John, it was great to have your support and that of the community. 'I hope everyone who reads these posts can realise there is a family behind this who are suffering a tragic loss, and ignore the offensive responses you have received." Join Edinburgh Live's Whatsapp Community here and get the latest news sent straight to your messages. Ahead of the event her family wrote: "We will be installing a new bench on the River Bank for Rachel Bywater, who very sadly passed away on May 17th this year. "To mark the occasion a fund raiser will be held on the Sunday to raise funds for BEAT (Eating Disorders). All you have to do is walk, jog or run 1, 2 or 3 laps of the FeldyRoo Fitness Trail. "The choice is yours, all we want is everyone to get involved. You can fill in an entry form and pick up sponsorship form at any of the pubs - Fountain, Black Wach or Schiehallion. "Entry is totally free but raised sponsorship or donations on the day would be really appreciated no matter how little or large."
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Health
- News.com.au
‘You're the first person to ask me about that': Glennon Doyle on body image, resilience and Ivanka Trump
Author and podcaster Glennon Doyle tackles life's biggest questions, the 'self-help' label – and the Trumps. Stellar: Your new book We Can Do Hard Things was created with the backdrop of a very difficult time for yourself, your wife Abby Wambach and your sister Amanda Doyle, who co-wrote this book and host the popular podcast of the same name with you. You were dealing with an anorexia diagnosis. Abby had lost her beloved brother. Amanda had a breast cancer diagnosis. What was navigating that time like for you? Glennon Doyle: My sister and my wife are my people. Maybe because I depend on the two of them [so much], I don't actually have many friends in a wider circle. I'm used to one of them being steady. When I got my new anorexia diagnosis – I've been dealing with eating disorders since I was 10 – I felt humiliated. Embarrassed. I couldn't believe I'm still dealing with this. I felt like everyone in my life was gonna be like, get over it. But it felt like I was drowning and I looked over at the shore and both the lifeguards were passed out. My lifeguards were also having their own moment. Glennon Doyle (continued): It feels like a very bad design of life that when trauma comes, that's the time that we can't remember anything we know. That's the time we can't call up all the wisdom we've learnt about how to make it through. That sucks. Trauma causes this little mini dissociation. Unfortunately Abby felt the same way and so did Amanda. So we were just kind of staring at each other blinking. And this cool thing happened. I started writing down little sentences or quotes or paragraphs that we had said to each other on the podcast and sending them to my sister to help her through the cancer thing. Listen to the full interview with Glennon Doyle on Something To Talk About below: Then she started writing down things about grief for Abby. And we had this little file going around. And Abby started writing things down for me about bodies. We kept this file that we were just using as an anchor outside of ourselves, which is funny because I've spent my entire life telling people that they have all the answers inside of them. I'm no longer positive that's true. Three months later, my friend was going through this horrible break-up and I sent her the file we had about grief. And she wrote back and said, 'Glennon, can you make me this for all the categories of life? This is what I need.' And I thought, yeah. I actually can do that. And that's how it started. That's how the book was born. Stellar: The book is an exploration of 20 questions that we all wrestle with throughout our lives, and features conversations you've had with 118 'of the world's most brilliant wayfinders'. How did you pull that off? Glennon Doyle: Some of the passages are from texts between friends, but most of them are from conversations that we had on our podcast. Over time the conversations we had on that podcast really rewired our minds and hearts and the way we saw the world. As we pored through those conversations, we realised people are really talking about the same 20 questions over and over again from their particular slice of life. So all I had to do was to wrangle all these people and say 'How about this incredible, brilliant thing that you said be put in print?' And most of them were like, 'Great. I sound very smart in that.' The people in this book are some of the most open-minded, justice-minded, love-minded and community-minded people on earth. We've got a lot going on in this country [the US] right now. It really feels like the whole idea of self-help and individual optimisation has failed us. And so what I'm very proud of is that this book is about collective wisdom. It's about: we can't figure this out by ourselves, we have to look at the world from as many different perspectives as there are people. And I just think that's why it's resonating so much here. It's about the collective. Stellar: You're often referred to as a self-help guru. Would you agree with that assessment? Glennon Doyle: Don't get me started on the self-help. I have so many male counterparts who write about the same things that I write about, who write about power and power dynamics and life and relationships even, and politics and community. Do you think that any of them are ever labelled 'self-help'? My books will be in the self-help aisle. My counterparts, men, will be in leadership. Do you ever hear a man's work described as self-help? No, no, no. Because men, they're good to go. They just need some leadership skills. Women are just a mess, and they just need help with their little selves. That distinction is in every area, right? That's the literary version, but even, [with] our bodies, men are taught to bulk up [and get] bigger, bigger, bigger and women are taught to get smaller. Money. Men are taught to invest. Women are taught to save. Every single category is about men. Just get bigger, get bolder, go for it. And women … Self-help. You're not even ready to leave the room. Just get smaller and smaller and fix yourself before you can even approach the world. So yes, I have many issues with the self-help title and I think it has a lot to do with gender. The whole navel-gazing thing is so interesting. Like, God forbid a man do a little bit of self-reflection. I would like some men to look harder at their navels. Honestly, I think that would do us all a little bit of good. Stellar: In your home country of the United States, does it feel like a time when people are searching for answers and feeling more isolated than ever? Glennon Doyle: It's a nightmare here. It's awful. We're seeing our neighbours be rounded up in front of us. I see it with my own eyes all the time. I was just in children's immigration court watching two-year-olds represent themselves, separated from their families. My family and every LGBTQ family I know is terrified. Parents with trans kids are leaving if they can. It's a really scary time here. With this book, we did a tour. I didn't want to do that. That's so much 'leaving of my house'. Not just answering my door, but standing on the actual stages. The incredible thing was, I think we have this feeling in the States right now, a lot of media is being suppressed and so it can feel like you're the only one who cares or the only one who's afraid or angry or wishes for something better. And this tour was so important to me because it was auditoriums and theatres full of people who were so hopeful and so angry and so united and so beautiful. They say hopelessness is just the feeling that nobody else cares, that you're alone. And so that tour that we did with the We Can Do Hard Things book, I think reinvigorated a lot of us and just reminded us there are still a lot of people here who care, and who will not stand for what's going down right now here. Listen to the full interview with Glennon Doyle on Something To Talk About below: Stellar: You have used your platform to advocate for many causes, including speaking out against the Trump administration, particularly during the election campaign in 2024. Recently Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka posted on Instagram a picture of herself holding your memoir Untamed. How did that moment sit with you? Glennon Doyle: You're the first person to ask me about that. My team sent it to me. I was stunned. I just didn't process it completely. I can tell you honestly that my best guess is she didn't read it all the way through. There's an entire essay about her dad in it that is about how unbelievable it is that this man is being seen as a leader of what is supposed to be Christian nationalism. So I think she probably didn't get all the way through. But all I can say is, I hope that she does read it. I hope she reads it really, really carefully. That's what I'll say about that.
The Guardian
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Father Figure by Emma Forrest review – a slippery tale of teenage obsession
Father Figure opens with a memory of murders, bought and paid for; then skips briskly to scholarship girl Gail, who is on the verge of being expelled from her expensive London academy for writing a scandalous essay. The connection between death and day school is new girl Agata, the daughter of notoriously corrupt East End businessman Ezra Levy. Ezra, a man who takes phone calls from Putin, buys football clubs and has had people killed, wants more for Agata than he had when young. Her anorexia is killing her, and he, 'fleshy and stupid', can't stop it. Gail sets her sights on Ezra: part compulsion, part seduction, an adolescent power game taken to dangerous conclusions. Gail's mother, Dar, wants to make it clear that they are a very different sort of Jewish from Ezra. Ezra, Dar believes, is bad for Britain and bad for Jewish people. A pro-Palestinian activist for whom Israel is 'a KICK ME sticker', Dar isn't sure about Ashkenazim (too much therapy, not enough booze) and 'suspicious of Hassidim ... booking flights that took off on Saturdays so she'd never have to sit next to them'. Is Dar antisemitic? Gail worries she might be. And Dar worries about Gail all the time: the mother-daughter relationship is close, troubled and finely drawn. Precocious Gail is the kind of 16-year-old who writes long, thoughtful letters to George Michael. They begin simply – 'Dear George … what exactly happens in cottaging?'– and progress, as Gail's dangerous infatuation with Ezra builds, to 'Dear George … I looked like a teenage girl in a pornographic magazine. He didn't see that. But I did.' The one-sided nature of the correspondence evokes exactly the never-enough feeling of adolescence. The conceit is charming and funny, if a little underdeveloped. The year is 2015 but, with minor tweaks, the novel could be set 10 years later or 50 before. Adolescence, and the hot, hungry nature of it, doesn't change much. The teenage girl, in Forrest's capable and unusual fifth novel, is a kind of bottomless pit of need – for desire, attention and the world to come. Agata, seriously ill, attempts to wrest back control from Ezra and her doting stepmother; Faith, Gail's one-time lover and former best friend, breaks away from Gail by flirting with a whole cohort of teenage boys on Hampstead Heath; and Gail herself is unstoppable. 'I fellated a Cypriot fruiterer at the apex of Parliament Hill,' begins her controversial essay. The teenage girl is also a thing mostly beyond adult understanding, and certainly beyond adult intervention, which here only serves to complicate matters further. This is a book that seeks to complicate everything it possibly can. From the sexual agency of teenage girls to bigotry among billionaires, mental illness, murder, protest, queerness, and the obviously thorny question of Israeli-Palestinian relations, Father Figure thrives as an exploration of grey areas. As a novelist, Forrest tends to reserve judgment: her characters are not likable, but they are tender. They feel things very deeply, and Forrest treats each one with distinction. You could never mistake them for anyone else. The same is true of Forrest's prose, the rhythm always half a beat from where you think it will land. The overall effect is of a kind of faux-naivety, even a childlike desire to spell things out, to have clarity at all costs ('Faith swam back and forth between the child and the mother, unsure of who could better advance her needs, because she still didn't know what her needs were'). And yet the contrast between this plain tell-don't-show approach, and the complex nuances of Forrest's plot, characters and morality systems creates a kind of literary twilight zone in which anything is possible. It feels like being told a story by a liar. Or by a precocious teenager. Forrest's adolescent ventriloquism is a gift deployed powerfully here. Being able to avoid the school loos, for example, is a 'more valuable talent than being able to hold your breath under water'; the only girl more unloved than Gail is 'Fat Lilah'; the resentment of Gail for her mother is matched only by Dar's desperation to understand her daughter. 'Living in the era where mothers could track their children digitally,' Dar muses, 'only made her daughter's emotional secrecy more challenging to accept.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The novel twists in the final third: from a meditation on older men and betrayal, it becomes a breathtaking gallop into something significantly closer to a thriller. This is fairly unexpected, but not at all unwelcome. A plot! In a literary coming-of-age story! Nothing, in Forrest's writing, is ever simple. Things are deceptive, untidy and uneasy – and happen when you least expect it. Actions have consequences, and those consequences can change the shape of everything – which is, I suppose, always the true lesson of adolescence. And the true, tricky, slippery lesson of Forrest's novel. Father Figure by Emma Forrest is published by W&N (£18.99). To support the Guardian buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply.
South China Morning Post
09-07-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Eating disorders almost destroyed 28kg Hongkonger. How she beat them and now thrives
Hongkonger Miley Millamena is in a good place. The 24-year-old recently landed a dream job as a bartender at Penicillin, in Hong Kong's Central neighbourhood, and she gets to unleash her creativity as a freelance make-up artist and part-time model. Advertisement But life was not always so rosy for Millamena, who struggled with depression and eating disorders in her teenage years. She hit rock bottom in 2019 when, aged 18 and weighing just 28kg (62lb), she held a knife to her throat in the kitchen of her parents' home. Her father intervened, and Millamena was hospitalised for a year after her suicide attempt. Today, at a coffee shop in Central, Millamena can talk candidly about her battle with anorexia nervosa – a condition that causes people to obsess about their weight and food – and bulimia , which is characterised by binge eating followed by self-induced vomiting or fasting to prevent weight gain. Millamena pictured in 2018. In her teenage years, she struggled with depression and eating disorders. Photo: courtesy of Miley Millamena By sharing her story, Millamena hopes to destigmatise eating disorders and raise awareness about their grave impact. Advertisement She says they are not taken seriously in Hong Kong, and the fact that the city lacks official statistics on eating disorders strengthens her claim.
