Welcome to our Blog and thank you for taking interest in our society!
A bit about us!
We are a group of students representative of the UK's largest eating disorder charity Beat. We aim to raise awareness of eating disorders of campus and signpost people to where they can get support. We work extremely closely with the charity and the university in order to make eating disorder sufferers/carers feel supported here at the University of Leeds. We are all so passionate about this cause and as a committee we work closely with our volunteers to do a lot of events throughout the year. We are always seeking new volunteers and would love to have you. So please do message us and we will be able to inform you of how you can help!
Our Previous Events!
Last year was our first year as a society and was such a success and a learning curve for us all! We pulled off some big and brilliant events with eating disorder awareness week being the icing on the cake. In this week we had events running every single day and partnered with other societies to pull off fundraising challenges and running awareness events. As part of our showstopper event a group of committee did a body confidence session where we all stripped down into our bra and shorts in the LUU Union and got our student community to write positive things they like about their own body on us. Almost like we were a canvas for body positive messages.
"This was our best and most popular event all year! We had so much engagement and so many people come up to say that our confidence to be able to walk about the uni embracing our bodies helped them immensely. - Rosie (Current President 2020/21)"
We regularly involved our volunteers in running stalls with us to raise awareness about eating disorders and this is something we hope to do throughout this year as well. These stalls often involved interactive elements such as boards with positive messages such as "I love my body because..." Furthermore we participated in the "Wellfair" where we partnered with other wellbeing societies in order to raise awareness of mental health issues. We loved this event and saw the collective passion and mutual support between the different societies and their committees.
We have had such successful partnerships with other societies collaborating with the Leeds trampolining, Vertical Fitness and Gymnastics societies for a Love Your Leotard campaign. Each day each of the three amazing societies posted a photo in their leotards to raise awareness of body confidence issues, eating disorders and to break the barriers that prevent people from participating in these sports. This social media campaign was incredibly successful and empowering and raised proceeds for Beat.
"Gymnastics is a sport which unfortunately has a history of connections with body issues and eating disorders. This is something we are passionate about changing, making the sport better and safer for everyone. - @UOL.Gymnastics (instagram)
This year we had a very successful year at the Riley Awards being short listed for Best New Collaboration with Mind Matters and Best Charity Fundraiser and winning Best Long-Standing Collaboration with Ballet Society. We have run several events with Ballet Society throughout the year and our friendship between our societies is so important to us. To start the year of we co ran a pub quiz which raised almost £150! We have spoken at so many of their classes signposting people to where they can get support. Furthermore we ran a "Sock It to Eating Disorders" campaign where we all wore funky socks in order to raise awareness of eating disorders. Additionally as one of our last events of the year Ballet society hosted a strength and conditioning class to raise money for Beat which was so enjoyable.
Not only have we partnered with societies but we have also raised awareness amongst university faculties and at our university gym "The Edge." The Edge have been an incredible partnership for us and embraced our society and charity with open arms. This was really important to us just because how prevalent eating disorder and disordered behavioural patterns are at the gym. Furthermore, we have worked alongside the psychology faculty to provide awareness in how to avoid triggering content in lectures and signposting to resources that both their students and lecturers can use.
These are only a few of the things we have done this year. We have spent every fortnightly committee meeting planning events such as these and have bonded so much as committee. We are so excited to welcome the new committee and begin to plan our year again.
If you want to get involved or write some blog posts for us please get in touch with us on our social media!
Written by Rosie Nevison
President of University of Leeds Beat Society