Nick Watts, My little writing place

I've Moved!!!

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:10:24 +0000

Hello everyone!

A massive thanks first of all to all the lovely people that follow my blog on Tumblr but this post is to tell you all I have moved!

I realised quickly that as I have several blogs, on several different subjects and several different websites it was a wise idea to move onto my own website.

You can now find me over at www.nickjwatts.com

I do hope you will all continue to visit me over there!

Much love and a happy new year from me!

Nick x

2011, A good year for male eating disorder sufferers?

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:59:53 +0000

2011 has been a whirlwind year for me, Men Get Eating Disorders Too and of course my colleagues and I think this year we have seen some brilliant recognition of not only the charity but also the very reason we exist. While we still have a long way to go in what we do and what we want to achieve as it is the last day of 2011 I thought it would be a good idea to recap what has gone on!

First off at MGEDT we released our first ever national leaflet and poster campaign which was distributed around the UK to healthcare professionals, voluntary organisations and distributed heavily at events and conferences we attended throughout the year. This was shortly followed by our first ever national conference to address the issue of men and eating disorders, which featured some of our supporters, professionals and staff from the charity. We also had some good media coverage this year, including appearances live on national television, national and local radio, print and online articles and various blogs and guest columns.

Possibly the biggest achievement this year was the launch of our first ever live support chat sessions, the only sessions of their kind worldwide to offer specific support to men with eating disorders. This pilot session will continue to run into early 2012 but I personally feel it has been a massive success, giving men the opportunity to speak out about their issues in a safe environment, easing the isolation they have as a result of their issues.

Personally, I have had some fantastic experiences this year, from media appearances to challenges with Sarah, all the way to sitting on a research panel for Oxford University and the Men’s Health steering group. If anything it proves that the issues of eating disorders and body image in men are starting to be taken seriously, with more organisations and bodies realising the need to have representation of these issues, which is a big step in the world of men’s health.

It has also been a fantastic year for press, with several high profile research studies and figure releases highlighting the very need for increased service provision, better awareness and more support availability, both peer and professional.

In July 2011, the Royal College of General Practitioners released figures showing a 66% rise in the number of men being admitted for the treatment of eating disorders in the UK, urging GP’s to be more aware of the symptoms of eating disorders in men.

In August 2011 another set of statistics were released regarding the rise in eating disorder cases in young people, including a large amount of boys. This again led to national scale publicity in most major publications, radio and television.

In September 2011 there was a slightly different release which was all about the rise in weight loss surgery in young people, including a large amount of men. This was a good release as it is important to recognise that eating disorders are not necessarily restrictive but lesser known disorders such as binge and compulsive eating can cause just as many problems for sufferers and yet are not seen in the same light in restricting disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.

A lot of other stuff went on too, including the UK’s first ever fat talk free week, a highlight of self-harm in young people and a lot of focus on the effects of bullying to the mental health of all young people. We also saw really busy periods in both men’s health week and eating disorders awareness week. So much more happened in what I think has been our biggest and busiest year yet, but I have concentrated on some of the really key points here.

Undoubtedly, we still have a long way to go to make sure the appropriate recognition is given to male body image, eating disorders and mental health as a whole, but I would like to think that in 2011 we made a very good start. We have lots of stuff going on in 2012 to make sure that eating disorders and men’s mental health will remain firmly on the agenda and hopefully go that extra mile, building on what we have achieved this year. I would personally like to get out to more universities, deliver more training to professionals and stay on the media train to get our message out there.

All that is really left to do is thank everyone that has supported our campaigns, told their stories and contributed to the massive successes this year. It has been a good year for our cause, we have a long way to go still, but all in all, I think we made a good deal of progress.

Until 2012!

Nick

Another show, another fat joke

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:07:12 +0000

Here I am, watching Jack Whitehall on E4 who I find absolutely hilarious and within his material is of course a section of fat jokes, one that struck me in particular was on the labelling of food, that we should do it like we do cigarettes and cake should have “have a photo of a fat woman crying, coming empty handed out of Topshop”.

I then saw a mini rant on twitter about the same joke which this person clearly took a lot of offence to, in how it was offensive, hurtful and belittling. But is this really any different to the endless amount of racist, political, ageist and every other joke out there?

I personally don’t think so, I really think you can take a joke too seriously and you can also take a topic too seriously too. In fact, from my experience some of the most powerful health awareness campaigns out there are fronted by comedians or take a jovial approach to the issue which it is talking about.

Yes there is such a thing as a comedian taking it too far, but if they can’t poke fun out of stuff, what can they actually be funny about. It is a completely different story if this sort of thing is directed at an individual, it then becomes offensive in my eyes, but from this standpoint I seriously see nothing wrong with it.

Does the fact I laughed at it make me a bad person? Does it make me any less passionate about the causes that I work with? Well no I don’t think it does, it just means I found something completely jovial rather funny!

Sometimes, I think people can be so wrapped in their causes that they fail to see the funny side of something which is there to be taken in complete jest. I also feel it would be rather silly of me to say that fat jokes should be banned from TV, because then we would have to ban anything which anyone would consider mildly offensive and we would end up with a 2 hour show of a comedian standing still, randomly blinking.

More importantly, I think that we wouldn’t find these things offensive if we were comfortable with ourselves as a whole. So instead of concentrating anger on things which are at the end of the day meant to be funny we should look at things which damage people more, diet advertising, airbrushing, pressures we feel to fit into a mould.

My message from this one is simple, sometimes people just need to chill out and look at the bigger picture.

My new year’s resolution is NOT to diet

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:47:16 +0000

We are coming close to the part of the year that annoys me the most, the seeing in of the New Year. I must admit, I love the party, the party poppers and the immense amounts of champagne I usually have until I wake up at 3pm on January 1^st feeling like someone beat me over the head with said champagne.

What do I hate about it then?

It has to be the time old tradition of the New Year’s resolution! They are there and they are made to be broken most of the time (in fact I don’t know a single person who has ever stuck to it). We seem to go for the top three resolutions when it comes down to it, to lose weight, to get fit or to quit smoking. But today of course I am concentrating on the get fit and losing weight!

I feel the need to point out that there is nothing wrong with getting fitter, providing you’re doing it for you, but I really feel that the wasted New Year’s resolution is not the way to do it. First of all why do we need s resolution to tell us we need to do it, this only makes it feel like a chore or challenge and frankly there is no chance of succeeding if you don’t want to do it. Secondly, there is no need to go to drastic efforts, crash diets or hours of exercise to achieve it, rather, it comes down to being mindful about your body and just treating it well and with respect.

We all seem to have this mindset that the “all or nothing” approach is the one that works, that to be healthy we can’t have anything “naughty” or as some anger inducing diet plans likes to put it “sinful”. There is no such thing as naughty food, it is only food after all, we can have our cake and eat it, but the wonderful saying of everything in moderation comes into play.

It’s the time of year when everybody feels it is the socially acceptable thing to diet, because of course we should all feel guilty about our Christmas indulgences, right?

Well no, this is what the hours of post-Christmas diet advertising wants you to think, same time every year, every channel you turn to will be the usual pressure, lose weight with this plan, join this gym and within 45 seconds you will have the perfect abs, utter bollocks. Yet people flock in their thousands to try out this latest fad, only to forget about it by time February comes along.

If we want to make changes to our fitness regimes and our diets then we can do it at any point of the year and more importantly by making small changes, not having to deprive ourselves of what we love, what’s the point in doing that! Also, we need to do it because we want to do it, not because something is telling us we should. Add an extra walk or jog into your week, get off the buss a stop or 2 early, simple things that are very achievable, yet can have a great impact. We can eat what we want, but instead of having an entire bar we have half. Simple changes that mean your whole life isn’t taken over by your New Year’s utter rubbish resolution.

Instead I would like to see everyone make a different kind of resolution this year, the love your body resolution, which isn’t just for Christmas, or New Year, or the month of January but a lifelong commitment to love your unique, amazing body. We don’t need to change for anybody; we just need to happy with ourselves and maybe we do want to do a little more exercise next year, but we do it for our health, not to look better for somebody else, as frankly, it’s your body, not society’s.

Christmas doesn’t have to be about your eating disorder

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:10:31 +0000

So, I was totally planning on writing for Mental Healthy about coping over the festive season with an eating disorder, but I ran out of time, didn’t have a chance and so I thought I would make it a quicky on here.

Christmas is notorious for being an especially hard time for dealing and coping with mental health issues, especially eating disorders. Looking back, I can remember the time when Christmas was massively difficult for me.

I thought this was for many reasons, including the amount of food on offer that everyone thought I devour and then how on earth I could correct all that wrong. Then there was the guilt, surely I didn’t deserve Christmas and as for all the people around, what on earth do they think of me?

Notice I used the word thought, because that’s not what I think now. If I was to be perfectly honest, now I would say that the reason Christmas was so hard is because I overthought it, worked myself up into a bundle of nerves and in effect sabotaged myself without even knowing it.

In the run up to Christmas I would sit there planning, listing and working out escape routes, panicking about how the day would turn out, worry about other people, how would they react if I didn’t take that extra potato, would they think I was ill again?

In reality, is it really any different to any other day? There might be a few more chocolates about but it is like any other day. It doesn’t need to be treated as differently as any other day, if you have a meal plan you can still stick to it, if your full you don’t have to eat anything more and if it is all the people around that is causing your anxiety, there is nothing stopping you leaving the room for 20 minutes. This is where mindfulness and relaxation comes into play, understanding and working with your body, what it wants and what it needs and not what other people expect of you.

Probably the most important part of all of this and something I have intentionally left until this point is that Christmas isn’t all about food. This is what I needed to get into my head, I would be so consumed with the food side of Christmas I would forget about the rest of the day, the part of the day I loved, seeing all the people I know, having lots of lovely gifts and watching crappy films until my eyes bled.

Christmas is about all those things that we all know and love, the tree, pretty decorations, presents, family, friends having a giggle and a glass of 10 of wine!

And as for Christmas dinner, it is but another meal, nothing more, nothing less and if we look it at like that, it is really not as scary as we once thought it was.

That’s all from me, wishing everyone a fabulous and happy Christmas!

Nick x

As some may know me and Sarah have been running around getting...

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:37:49 +0000

As some may know me and Sarah have been running around getting people’s opinion on body image all month long as part of our advent calendar challenge!

This video is a special little video on day 23 (the last topic day) of the challenge! it is a little bit of a special video, with a good few familiar faces!

Enjoy

Nick x

Men’s health, my topic of the day!

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:24:24 +0000

Well I say it is a topic of the day, but it is really a topic that I talk about a lot. Today especially because I have just finished at a men’s health strategic planning panel (and now enjoying my mocha with extra cream while I write about my ramblings of the day!).

First off, it was great to see a room full of people committed to the advancement of health awareness in men, from professionals, service users, other charities and even the fire service. The collection of skills in the room was varied and there was a great deal to get through and talk about, that said, I am not really meant to say what was discussed in the meeting, so I won’t.

Instead I wanted to have a little ramble about some of the topics that came up and some of the debates around it, as I learnt a lot about the overall picture of men’s health today as usually I come from a very emotional health point of view.

The most obvious thing that came out of it was that men don’t generally talk about health issues, I am forever talking about how they don’t talk about emotional health but it is also clear that physical health is greatly neglected too. When campaigns are aimed at men they are usually about testicular cancer or getting all your exercise. Then you see this group of people all looking in at men’s health in different ways, through tackling the issues through workforces and unions all the way to the fire service outreach encouraging men to be aware of their help and access services.

It goes to show that it is not just professionals and charities that come into play when we talk about the overall issue of men’s health, but individuals in local communities and a multi-agency approach even with those agencies you wouldn’t usually look upon as somewhere for health advice.

Secondly and I feel most importantly, there is a general consensus that when we look at the issue of men’s health, it is just not taken all that seriously. We had a brief chat about the HPV vaccine and the massive campaign that went on encouraging women to get it to prevent cervical cancer when there is just as much evidence that the vaccine can also prevent certain cancers in men. Despite all this evidence we see nothing out there warning men of the risk or encouraging them to get the vaccine.

But I also think it is important that we don’t swing the other way. There is such a focus of female health and wellbeing and as a men’s health type person I am not out to ensure that men are singled out and get the best treatment. Instead, what I would like to see is equal access to health, no favourability but instead a gender inclusive service across the board. For instance, when you look at funding of health services, the amount invested in men’s health in comparison to women’s health is massively different, with men’s health being drastically underfunded in most areas of the country.

While this is all important, it does not in my mind solve the age old problem. Men’s health has become something of a societal issue, men don’t talk about their health and men don’t open up about their issues, which make them a harder group of people to reach. So how do we get men talking? It’s the time old question to which I don’t have an answer to, but I think it has to be along many levels, many different campaigns and really get to the heart of men and get them talking.

This may mean organisations having to be a bit more risqué in their literature, creating engaging and interactive campaigns and get away from the stereotypical information we so commonly see. Largely, we need people out there spreading the word, raising the profile of men’s health. Imagine if everyone oh read this just started a little discussion about their health, could it have the potential to spread?

So these are my very broad musings, but all in all I am so glad to see a group of people so committed to the health of men, it is certainly a step forward. Now I shall leave you, because however passionate I am about the topic, if I hear the words Men’s Health again today I may internally combust!

My Saturday Facebook rant

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 12:10:12 +0000

So it’s Saturday, I’ve moved over to the new Facebook timeline profile and within 10 minutes of having it I have rage. Not because I don’t like the look or feel of it, not for any particular social media reason, but simple rage for one message that was one of the first things I saw.

The new timeline, without getting massively technical, has much more emphasis on your life and your life phases, so as well as the status updates we are all used to, we can now post ‘live events’ used for those moments that Facebook consider to be more important than a status update. This is broken down into things like work, relationships, home, travel and health and I was absolutely mortified when the first thing I see under the Health and wellness option was………

Oh yes! apparently most important to your health and wellness according to the sun dwelling, California sun stroked folk at Facebook are your eating habits and weight loss!

So on a website that is by far one of the most used, by the most amount of people, for an obscene amount of time week on week the attitude towards body image and dieting is the same, where we are praised for losing weight, even if we didn’t need to do it in the first place.

So the diet adverts on the right hand side of your Facebook isn’t enough, the offline exposure to the diet culture isn’t enough, your friends talking about their latest ridiculous diet on their profile isn’t enough! So we find another way to introduce it into conversation by bragging about your weight loss to all your favourite cyber friends.

Let’s create more competition than we had before, compare weight more than we already do in a culture obsessed with “thin is in”. Let’s pay attention to and start encouraging happiness for people that live their life in diet misery, in order to calm their delusion that the glass of water and a celery stick a day is worth it.

The fact is we live in a culture obsessed with appearance, weight and the way we eat. So let’s just make it even more accessible to indulge in unhealthy behaviour.

Why can’t we have a Facebook button for “Learnt to love my body”?

A quick storify, how people have been defining beauty today!

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:57:15 +0000

Originally from the body image advent.

Your Body Book, your scars

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:21:49 +0000

So I have written quite a bit about self-harm in the last few weeks for both Mental Healthy & Keep Smilin’ and covered the topic in some depth. All of my writing was concentrated on self-harm itself and coping strategies to get away from it, but what about after, when all that is left is the scars?

Today on the body image advent we covered just that topic, had a few submissions and Sarah and I did our own little videos on our thoughts on the subject.

In my video I spoke a little bit about a body being a little bit like a book, in that it tells a story about you, your life, your accomplishments and indeed the not so good bits. Every notch, nook, cranny, scar and mark has a story, each like a word in a book, so when you put it all together you get a story.

I really believe this and think that no matter what, it tells your story, it is part of you and in turn you should be proud of it. People who have self-harmed speak of shame, embarrassment and so many spend the rest of their lives covered up, daring not to show the scars with the dread of having to explain them to people. It was no different from me, yes I self-harmed as a teenager, is that a bad thing? Does it make me a bad person? Well no it doesn’t, if anything it is a sign that whoever it may be had a tough time, dealt with it and moved on with their lives, which in my eyes make those scars quite the show of strength.

Of course we have the funny moments, the scars from going flying, falling while messing around as a kid. We have the one’s that bring back memories of a good night or a good day out and we manage to look at them positively as like a ‘battle wound’ so to speak, so why do we inherently look on the scars that were deliberate as something negative, something bad, something to be ashamed of?

I think it is important to remember that it is nothing to be ashamed of, it is just another scar. But at the same time, I think it is important that we don’t ignore them, as they do tell their own story. It may be a funny one, a tragic one, an embarrassing one or even a sad one, but they are part of who we are, the chapter in our life.

As for those people that have self-harmed and carry those scars with them all the time the message is simple, while I am not saying to show them off, they are a show of strength, something you took ownership of and stopped, conquered and dealt with. It’s not a chapter that should be left out of our own little body book, if anything it is something to celebrate, as scars are something that were, not something that are anymore.

Here are my ramblings in video for the challenge;

So sitting down will give me a fat arse

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:36:58 +0000

If I was to listen to all the research (most of it an utter waste of researchers time, seriously, people pay for this crap) then I wouldn’t be able to do much

· Chocolate will make me fat

· Alcohol is bad for me

· Pretty much anything enjoyable will give me cancer

· Two weeks later it will good for me

And now the latest little bit of useless research has been published, which tells me that if I sit down too much, I will get a fat arse. This research, which I found through the Nursing Times of all places is yet another piece of rubbish that makes us think there is another thing we shouldn’t do. Yes it is important that we are healthy, treat our bodies with respect and look after ourselves but rubbish like this just tells us that something that so many of us do (like sitting at a desk) will inevitably give you the arse the size of a house.

The fact is, if we are sensible then we have nothing to worry about, we don’t need to go to extraordinary lengths to achieve anything, just be sensible and we will likely lead long, happy lives. What really irritates me is you can guarantee that some people will take this to heart and much like avoiding fatty foods and things that are ‘naughty but nice’ people will start avoiding it. It’s yet another little shred of information that if you are already insecure about your body, which so many people are, then it is likely to be taken to a whole new level.

Sitting could become the new cake, one of those things you look at and think ‘I really shouldn’t’. DFS will become the new fancy cake shop with people standing around the sofas, trying to assign an arse size or calorie count to the new leather recliner.

Really! Yes it is utterly ridiculous, but the point I am making is not, why can’t we just be left to live our lives, being sensible and not having to worry about the next thing that is going to be as bad for us as sitting.

I quote from the nursing times “people who are concerned about the plumpness of their bottom can make it smaller by eating a healthy diet and doing more exercise”. The majority of people who worry about the plumpness of their bottom in fact have nothing wrong with it and the illusion of it’s plumpness is in the mind, which no amount of exercise of diet will fix.

So really, while we are sitting down next do we really need to start counting until we next get to do a lap around the office? No, because that would be equally, if not more unhealthy. Or shall we do what all the nice little researchers want us to do and run around an open field smoking a carrot stick? Or, we could take the more sensible approach and just be sensible, we know what is good for us, why create more self hatred?

My Latest post on Keep Smilin - Young people and self harm

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:13:46 +0000

My Latest post on Keep Smilin - Young people and self harm:

We often hear the term self-harm and it wrongly has associations with ‘emo’s’ ‘goth’s’ and those who are seeking attention from others, when this couldn’t be further from the truth. I recently wrote an article for Mental Healthy on the huge rise of young people receiving medical treatment for self-harm and at the same time of hearing of these statistics, came across a YouTube video of a very brave young man from the US speaking out about his experiences of that and homophobic bullying. You can watch his video here (please note that it may contain material you may find upsetting and please by mindful about this before choosing to view it)

You could pretty much call this my life story - on Jayne Cox's fab blog

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:42:10 +0000

You could pretty much call this my life story - on Jayne Cox's fab blog:

I met Nick on Twitter, yes another one of those wonderful people who has come into my world through 140 characters. I was walking Daisie at the time and Nick just stood out in my timeline, he was another of those real people you find on Twitter, I felt he was brave and he had an important message and opinion to share.

So I’ve invited Nick onto my blog, he’s a fab blogger by the way and no Q&A this month for A Spotlight on…Just Nick in his words… his amazing life to date, his accomplishments and more proof, if you needed it, that we can live successfully beyond eating disorders and the difficulties of life.

My latest article on mental healthy "Self-Harm at an all time high in young people"

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:40:02 +0000

My latest article on mental healthy "Self-Harm at an all time high in young people"

This is possibly one of the saddest video’s I have ever...

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:06:24 +0000

This is possibly one of the saddest video’s I have ever seen, but this lad has so much courage.

The issues he talks about in this video really hit home for me, I have been there, I still have the scars to remind me every single day, I just really hope he can come out the other side of it a stronger, more confident person. He already shows so much bravery telling his story like this and while very sad, he is dealing with it.

But he SHOULDN’T have to deal with it, at the end of the day regardless of who we are, where we come from or anything else, we are all people and I hate that we feel the need to treat each other so badly, especially when the end result is something like this.

It’s a stark reminder of the twisted world we live in, but hopefully also a story that people really can get over these things and become stronger people as a result.

(Warning, Video contains references to self harm)

Ok so I am having a little rant on why I am so hacked off on day...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:55:14 +0000

Ok so I am having a little rant on why I am so hacked off on day 2 of the Body Image Advent challenge

Ruth Rogers, founder of Body Gossip, writes about the Advent Calendar Challenge

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:33:18 +0000

Ruth Rogers, founder of Body Gossip, writes about the Advent Calendar Challenge

Nick & Sarah’s Advent Calendar Challenge! Follow the Tumblr!

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:21:03 +0000

Nick & Sarah’s Advent Calendar Challenge! Follow the Tumblr!:

Nick and Sarah are at it again, bringing you yet another challenge….. 24 days, as many videos about the day’s body image topic as we can! Watch out world!

A little video rambling about the Nick & Sarah Advent...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:27:35 +0000

A little video rambling about the Nick & Sarah Advent Calendar challenge, why it is so necessary to do things like this and of course, why I feel that way!

Don’t forget the challenge has it’s own blog http://bodyimageadvent.tumblr.com/

My latest article for Mental Healthy 'New Statistics show worrying trend in young people’s body dissatisfaction'

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:00:29 +0000

My latest article for Mental Healthy 'New Statistics show worrying trend in young people’s body dissatisfaction':

Statistics recently released following commissioning by the Central YMCA show a worrying trend in the level of body dissatisfaction among young people. With a high number of young people saying they would go as far as plastic surgery to achieve their idea of a perfect image.