Eating Disorder Awareness Week runs from February 1st until the 7th, and this year’s focus is on how to spot an eating disorder that may not be as obvious.

With social media showing off pictures of perfectly sculpted men and women, it can easy to fall into the mental trap that if you just worked hard enough, you could look exactly like them.

Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate out of any psychiatric illness, and Executive Director of the Eating Disorder Support Network of Alberta Sue Huff says sometimes people’s body goals are not realistic.

“It’s part of a societal problem that we really idealize a thin body type, we certainly idealize people who have very rigidly controlled eating behaviours and excessive exercise regimes. We tend to applaud them and think that’s wonderful when in fact that’s not healthy.”

Although they may look good, that doesn't mean they are healthy, or are not suffering from some sort of eating disorder, even if they are not aware of it.

Huff says there will be workshops held in Edmonton and Calgary next week for fitness professionals, to help them spot signs of an eating disorder in their clients.

“There was a study that was done that shown that a really high percentage of fitness professionals in Canada feel that they probably have encountered someone with an eating disorder, it’s quite common. But most of them, 75%, felt they had no training, no guidelines, no idea what they were supposed to do.”

For more information, you can visit www.EDSNA.ca/edaw.