My daughter developed an eating disorder when she was 9. Although not solely responsible, she was distraught following a school PSE lesson about what they called 'Good' and 'Bad' food.

Following this she began to restrict these 'bad' foods until a few months later she was hospitalised and has remained in a tier 4 CAHMS unit for the past 12 months.

Her experience is a powerful reminder of the impact our words and lessons can have on young minds, especially those with neurodiversity who may already struggle with black-and-white thinking.

There is work to do.

In what is already becoming a society focused on image and social media perfection, children are now under more pressure than ever to attain an unhealth and unsustainable aesthetic in-keeping with what they see on TikTok.

In today’s world, where social media and image perfection dominate, children face unprecedented pressure to conform to unhealthy ideals. It is crucial that educators understand the implications of their language and create an environment where all children feel safe and valued. Through sessions with school staff, we will focus on how to teach about food groups without demonising any type of food and how to create comfortable mealtime settings for children who find eating in public challenging.

My sessions with children will be all about body image. Talking about what we consider to be 'healthy'. We will discuss skin care and how unnecessary it is for skin of their age, and how in the long term it can cause more damage and how ultimately, their bodies are the least interesting thing about them.

We will do some creative writing about the things we love about ourselves and our classmates and make it into a poem that highlights their worth.

I need to turn my daughter's experience into somewhat of a positive. It can't have been for nothing. I won't let it be.

To do this I need your help.

With the amazing Ataraxia for All CIC, we will be fundraising over summer to deliver these transformative sessions from September.

We will be holding a sponsored bootcamp, sleepover, 10k and much more. Please join us if you can and if not, please donate or share our story so that we can take the Care Beyond Calories programme into a school near you.

Jodie xxx