Health is Wealth

I've written about this before: schools around the world have been wanting to start sending home 'weight report cards' to parents on their children's weight. Well, one school in New York did just that. http://nypost.com/2014/05/22/nyc-says-this-girl-is-fat/ According to this, the school mediated each child's weight and height and calculated BMI. Then, each child was sent home with a sealed envelope addressed to their parents. The children didn't see their weights, and they were told not to open the envelopes. However, this little girl opened her letter and read that she was considered to be overweight on the BMI scale. At night, the girl asked her mom if she  was fat - because the letter from school said she was. I'm infuriated by this. Firstly, why are schools putting such an emphasis on weight and BMI? We all know that BMI is just a tool and not always a reliable indicator of health. It shouldn't be used alone to determine how healthy someone is. ...

I am blessed to say that Fr. Anthony has yet again published my work on his blog. This time, my post is about peace. http://franthony.com/2014/05/finding-peace/#disqus_thread  (P.s. A special thank you to Fr. Anthony, who has even mentioned my book in the bio before my post!) Peace. Something we all want, right? How many times do we just yearn for peace and quiet? Or what about those times when we want to feel at peace within our hearts? How about the world's peace? Or peace among our families and friends? We all want to feel at peace. And yet, at times, this seems nearly impossible. Caught up in our daily lives and rushes, we feel trapped and hopeless. This post is about finding peace in God's grace. It is about realizing that when all seems hopeless. God can give us peace. This post means a lot to me because I often struggle with feeling so busy and flustered. When I was in the ICU, I wanted to be at peace, and yet, this seemed impossible. With God's strength, I recov...

I have some big news to share with you all. My family and friends may already know this, but my online readers do not. Are you ready...? Ever since I recovered from ED, I wanted to share my story with others. I created this blog, and I am sure we can all look back to the start and see how far I have come. I believe that this blog has helped so many people - whether for ED, mental health, physical health, etc. But part of me wanted to do more. I wanted to make a bigger difference. I began giving presentations on ED, bullying, and mental health. But still, I wanted to do more. I wanted to use my story and experiences to help more people. I started writing a book about my experiences with ED and mental health. When I finally finished it, I tried submitting it to multiple publishers. I got numerous rejections, for various reasons. Some told me that they simply were not interested, while others told me that they didn't have enough money now to publish a new book. I was devastated. U...

This week is Children's Mental Health week! These seven days, the focus is on children and how we can promote their mental health. It is about understanding that mental health is extremely important for all of us - even for children. It is about knowing that mental health issues are not things we should label as being 'weird', 'bad', 'abnormal', or 'wrong'. Mental health is just as important as any other type of health! I have a secret for you. But it's not much of a secret, anymore, I suppose. I used to suffer from a mental health issue. In my sick days, I was quite sick because of the eating disorder. At a point in the hospital, I also struggled with depression. And it hurt - on the inside, but also physically. I was tired all the time. I felt scared, alone, and frustrated. I felt empty, void of all happiness. Now imagine if this happens in a child. Did you know that ONE IN FOUR children suffer from a mental health issue? I didn't! And ...