Meridian East

Creating the website…

While waiting to hear back about funding, I started writing and gathering much of the content for the site. This included facts about eating disorders and men, definitions of eating disorders, signs and symptoms, getting support, treatments, recovery, personal stories and inspirational articles – all of which became the various sections of the site. Most of this was written by me, with some articles and personal stories from the volunteers.

Ree put me in contact with two guys studying web design at the University of Brighton who put together the initial designs for the layout of the website.

In terms of the logo and branding, Karen at ITV Fixers made up some draft logos based on some of my own ideas. This was quite a difficult process to narrow down to the final logo as a) they were all good and b) I am incredibly indecisive. So I asked the volunteers to vote for the logo, which resulted in the final logo.

While the web design is being finalised, Karen (ITV Fixers, Creative Resources) uploaded a version of the site with all the written content and the ITV Fixers film. This also includes a video of me interviewing Lorna Marchant, the Eating Disorder Counsellor.

The website is not far off complete and should be ready for launch around the time of Eating Disorders Week (23-27 Feb). If not, I will be promoting the site as an upcoming website and will do further publicity in the coming months.

Campaigning…

Having met with a few men with eating disorders while setting up the site, I realised that services needed to be more inclusive of men’s needs in relation to eating disorders. Currently, this is a huge problem for men as many doctors can be unaware of this issue, meaning that they don’t get sufficient or appropriate help. Due to this lack of awareness many men report that getting a diagnosis for their eating disorder is a struggle and their symptoms dismissed probably because eating disorders are commonly seen as a female issue.

I want to try and help encourage better service provision and challenge such gender discrimination by setting up a petition on the 10 Downing Street website.

The petition reads:  “We, the undersigned, petition the Prime Minister to ensure men with eating disorders are given the same opportunities for treatment and care as female sufferers and are by no means discriminated against by their doctor/other health practitioners because they are male.”
I hope this will bring this issue to the government’s attention and prompt them to review services so that they are more inclusive to men’s needs.

I need as many people to sign this petition as possible. My target is to have at least 250 signatures by 9th January 2010.

Link to the petition: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/men-eds/

The next steps…

Besides completing the site and launching it, I have got quite a long list of things to do to develop the project and further the campaign.
This includes holding a fundraiser event, which will be a sponsored walk probably from Seaford to Brighton. Several of the volunteers/supporters have expressed interest in taking part so hopefully quite a few people will be involved in this. The idea for the walk is to raise some funds to sustain the website but to also raise the profile as well as bring all those who are involved together.

I am also thinking about holding an event at some stage to showcase the website to the various national and local service providers.
Longer term plans include looking and applying for funding so the project can grow and help men in other ways, possibly by providing support by holding events/conferences for men with eating disorders and/or providing training to service providers/professionals so they can be more inclusive of men’s needs.

In the meantime, I will be focusing on promoting the website and raising awareness of the issue. I am currently looking at applying for small pots of money to create a poster about the website and a flyer/leaflet.

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