JD Ouellette Peer Coaching

Posted • We’re thrilled to share Equip’s second annual report! 🎉

Since our first report, Equip has evolved in many ways. We’ve opened our virtual doors to patients of all ages, expanded coverage with Medicaid and other insurance providers, and have hit many more milestones (like launching our free body image module!) 🎯

With the backdrop of a surging youth mental health crisis, rampant spread of weight loss drugs, and ever-evolving risks of social media, our virtual eating disorder program is more important now than ever.

That’s why we’re proud to say that our data has shown what matters most: our patients are getting better.

Swipe through to see some highlights from the data, and click the link in our bio to see the full report. 🔗

“A myth I’d like to dispel is that you are not alone. Often the stigma surrounding mental health and body image can make people think that they are to blame, that these issues are somehow their fault, and that’s absolutely not true,” Tana Luo.

Posted • The virtual treatment boom has opened so many doors for more people to get the treatment they need – wherever they are. And this trend isn’t just in the eating disorder field. This , we’re celebrating the ways virtual treatment has broken down barriers across all forms of mental health treatment.

Be sure to click the link in our bio to check out the dedicated webpage in collaboration with , and keep an eye out for more to come!

[ID: Dark green banner on top with light green background below. Green text reads: Introducing our new content series. The Virtual Age of Eating Disorder Treatment. Swipe to learn more about the importance of virtual care and its evolution up to now. Bright green arrow pointing to the right below.]

This past week, Equip joined Eating Disorders Coalition at the capitol for it's annual Eating Disorder Advocacy Day. Advocates met with 67 offices in the U.S. House of Representatives and 43 offices in the U.S. Senate to urge Members of Congress to co-sponsor the Nutrition CARE Act and the Kids Online Safety Act.

In short, these bills propose:

🍽 The Nutrition CARE Act - that older demographics with Medicare Part B insurance have access to nutrition therapy coverage as a part of eating disorder treatment

🤳 Kids Online Safety Act - that social media platforms take accountability and address harms posed by their algorithms — pro-suicide content is pushed to teens every 2.6 minutes, and pro-ED content is pushed every 8!

Next year, Equip's team will be even larger — if you are interested in advocacy for eating disorder legislation, please reach out to us at [email protected]!

Posted • 👏 Diets don’t work 👏

Research has shown time and time again that dieting does not lead to sustainable weight loss. Your body deserves to be nourished!

Share this post as a small act of resistance against diet culture 👊

Join us at the NEDA walk! If you are located near New Hampshire, walk with Equip to help raise awareness for eating disorders and evidence-based treatment. The walk will take place on Saturday, April 27th at 10am at Oyster River Middle School.

If you plan on attending, please register via the email below so we can have some Equip swag ready for you.

Register here: [email protected]

“Identifying potential cases of eating disorders in an acute medical hospital”

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eat.24203

These beautiful words were written by an Equip community member as part of our free body image course.

It’s a reminder that the people in your life want to love and experience you exactly as you are — and you deserve that too. 💛

Check out Explore: Freeform: https://equip.health/explorefreeform?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Owned_Social&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_term=

Posted • On Instagram, “healing” can often look joyful, graceful, and linear. And sometimes it can be. But healing can also be messy and hard and feel like one step forward and two steps back. That’s okay too.

As humans, we naturally crave instant gratification. But almost everything that’s worth doing doesn’t feel good right away — and recovery is no different. So this is your reminder that even if your obsessive thoughts are lingering, even if you slip backwards on your goals, even if you’re exhausted at the end of the day: you’re still making progress.

Things WILL feel better with time, as long as you keep going. You can do this. 💙

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: FEAST x Equip Monthly Workshop. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. Join F.E.A.S.T mentors and Equip providers for a monthly discussion on how to support your loved one in eating disorder treatment or recovery. This meeting occurs monthly on the third Wednesday, at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET. Note: This interactive meeting is held in small breakout rooms. Meetings are no...

Posted • Exercise is inherently good for you, right? 🏃‍♀️

Well, it’s more complicated than that.

For a lot of people, exercise can be a powerful way to increase energy, reduce stress, and feel good in their body. But for others, exercise can become an unhealthy, obsessive behavior that does more harm than good. And excessive exercise often coincides with an active eating disorder. 🏋️

If you resonate with any of the signs on the right, you’re not alone — and it’s not your fault. But you may want to take a step back and reflect on whether your exercise routine is helping or hurting you.

The good news is, it’s never too late to build new habits. That might mean changing the type of exercise you do, how much time you spend exercising, your fitness goals, or just the mentality you show up with. 🧘 And it’s normal to need support in that process.

You deserve to find movement that brings you joy.💙

All of this.
“Professionals are scared to push someone too far. But I do not think there is such a thing as being pushed too far. If we want to help people recover, then we must push for further physical rehabilitation and getting to a place which is healthy for that person. By not pushing someone, we are not helping but just adding to the fear that the eating disorder holds.”

‘In Recovery’ is the Best You Can Hope For: a Reader’s Response — Anorexia Myths Guest Blogger Chris Sims on why clinicians and people with anorexia need to aim high

Posted • A lot of the “harmless” things people are used to saying about food and bodies can actually be pretty harmful. For instance, any statement that:

🥬 Implies there’s “good” and “bad” choices around food
🧍 Judges other people’s bodies or plates (even as a compliment)
💬 Centers thinness in conversations

A good rule of thumb is: if you’re not sure if you should say something, just don’t say it.

You never know if a small comment could land differently for someone quietly struggling with an eating disorder. Plus, we’re all bombarded with so much diet culture chatter everyday, we could all use a break.

Or, try these reframing tips to redirect the conversation. Not only will you make the conversation more comfortable for everyone, but it will probably make it more interesting too. 😉

Share this post to help make these comments obsolete!

Posted • In order to “deserve” a meal or snack, which of the following boxes do you need to check?

🔲 You ate a light lunch
🔲 You went to a workout class
🔲 Your clothes don’t feel tight
🔲 You don’t have a big meal coming up

Trick question! You don’t need to check any. Being a human being is more than enough reason to fuel your body.

All our lives, our weight-loss-obsessed society has told that we have to “earn” everything we eat. This is especially true for “bad” foods, like desserts or fried foods.

But ultimately, you deserve to eat what you want when you want — full stop. It doesn’t matter whether or not you exercised, what you ate yesterday, how your clothes feel on your body, what somebody else is eating: you deserve to eat. You *need* to eat.

There’s no shame if you’ve thought about eating in this way in the past, or if you still do. It’s hard to break out of this mindset when it’s all that many of us have been taught. But when you’re able to let go of the idea that food has to be earned, a whole world of joy, freedom, and connection opens up.

You’re inherently worthy of nourishment. Try to gently remind yourself of that the next time you find yourself questioning if you “deserve” a meal or snack. 💛

“There is much chatter in the eating disorders world about what the words ‘recovery’ and ‘recovered’ mean. Many believe that everyone should define their own recovery and that what recovered means is different for different people. I’m not sure that I agree. In fact, I believe that this idea is dangerous. It is letting clinicians off the hook and, worse, keeping their patients locked in the illness indefinitely.”

➡️ https://www.anorexiamyths.com/am-blog/myth-being-in-recovery-is-not-the-best-you-can-hope-for

“We are still looking for parents and teachers to participate! Those who have done it find it really interesting and worthwhile.”
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Posted • Do any of these signs feel familiar? 💭

We all have a unique threshold of how much and what kinds of foods we need to feel our best — and diets force us to follow an arbitrary, often harmful set of rules that disregards our individual needs. 📋

So when you restrict what you eat by going on a diet, your body often isn’t getting the nutrients it needs to function optimally. And when this happens, it lets you know through all sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle signs.

If you’ve noticed any of these changes in your body since starting a new diet, it’s probably time to hit pause. And if it’s proving difficult to break out of restricting habits, it might be helpful to talk to your doctor about the possibility of an eating disorder.

Ultimately, the best “diet” for you is the one that leaves you feeling your best, not the one that *might* make your body smaller. 💯

Posted • Very early on, we get taught that our eating habits are just a matter of willpower. You see this message in dieting ads 📺, in high school “health” classes 🍎, even in conversations with family members 👪.

But in reality, how much you eat on a given day is influenced by countless factors — more than we could ever list on this graphic. 📝

And the whole idea that you need to have “self-control” while eating can be incredibly harmful. This belief is often used as a weapon in fatphobic arguments, and can lead to feelings of guilt and shame after eating. It can encourage you to eat less than your body is asking you to.

It can also contribute to eating disorders — which are mental illnesses and NOT a matter of self-control or willpower. 👏

So let this serve as a reminder that what you eat and how much you eat isn’t a reflection of your willpower, motivation, or capabilities as a person.

“My practice is to not focus on my patient’s weight and instead focus on more holistic measures of health, including metrics like blood pressure, glucose control, mood and pain,” says Mara Gordon, MD, a primary care physician in Camden, NJ.

Why Some Doctors Are Setting Weight Aside When Measuring Health Is a number on a scale—whether it's 300 or 150—actually indicative of how healthy you are?

The impact of weight loss drugs on users with eating disorders Experts say the drugs could potentially be a trigger for users who have issues with eating and have called for careful patient screening.

Posted • Phrases like “guilty pleasure” and food items marketed as “guilt-free” make it clear that food and guilt are intimately connected in our society. As a culture, we’ve all bought into the idea that we should feel guilty when we eat “too much” or the “wrong” foods. 🍟 🍪 🥗 🍌

So if you find yourself battling guilt or shame after a meal or snack, you’re far from alone — and it’s not your fault. 🖤

This link between food and guilt has no basis in reality: it’s a diet culture delusion. In reality, food doesn’t have a moral value, and eating more or less doesn’t make you better or worse. By looking closely at where these guilty feelings come from, you can begin to distance yourself from them and replace them with your own, authentic and nourishing relationship with food. 🍲

Of course, that’s not always so easy. If you find yourself consistently struggling with food guilt, so much so that it’s affecting your eating habits and quality of life, it may be time to talk to a professional about the possibility of an eating disorder.

Overcoming guilty feelings is a big part of eating disorder recovery. We all deserve to live a life where food brings us joy, even after the meal is over. ❤️

Save this post to have these gentle reminders on hand next time you get a wave of guilt after eating. 🔖

Posted • A lot of us associate eating disorders with teens or young adults, but the reality is that they can affect people of any age.

Millions of women struggle with eating disorders later in life, and often this population silently suffers. This isn’t just because of stereotypes about who gets eating disorders, but also because the telltale signs can be buried by the other daily demands of life: mounting work stress 💼, cooking meals for the family 🍝, taking care of kids 🧒, managing finances 🏦.

Some women live with an eating disorder for years — even decades — without getting help, while others might experience a life event that triggers an eating disorder for the first time: menopause, empty nesting, retirement, a new health issue. 📅

Too many women in this age demographic go without care, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The first step is recognizing that many women over 50 are actively fighting an eating disorder, and the next is to look for signs in yourself or your loved ones, and seek help if you’re concerned.

Eating disorders affect ALL ages, and it’s never too late to seek recovery. ❤️ Share this post to spread awareness.

Your mental health and your eating habits are incredibly connected 🤝 One of the ways this shows up is in the relationship between eating and anxiety. Anxiety can shape your food-related behaviors in all sorts of different ways — and if you’ve ever struggled with anxiety, you’ve probably experienced one or more of the examples above.

Eating differently when you’re anxious doesn’t necessarily mean you have an eating disorder. But when your anxiety regularly drives disordered eating habits, there may be cause for concern.

Many people with anxiety develop an eating disorder, and vice versa. In fact, 48% of adults with anorexia, 81% of adults with bulimia, and 65% of adults with binge eating disorder also deal with an anxiety disorder.

Knowing which came first isn’t as important as getting treatment that can tackle both at once. Just as the two can exacerbate each other, recovery can lead to relief from both at the same time. 💛