Why we’re supporting the Dump the Scales March – and why prevention belongs in education
Every April, the Dump the Scales march brings people together to call for meaningful action on eating disorder prevention. This year, the march will take place on 18 April 2026, and we’re proud to be supporting it.
Our organisation doesn’t work in eating disorder treatment. But we do work upstream – with schools, educators and communities – to address the conditions that shape how children and young people feel about their bodies, their worth, and their right to belong.
That’s why this march is so important - and why we hope you’ll join us.
Prevention starts long before crisis
Through our work in education settings, we see how body-based stigma, weight bias and appearance-related judgement can quietly undermine wellbeing, participation and learning. These pressures rarely exist in isolation. They intersect with gender norms, online influence, poverty, racism, ableism and wider inequalities.
By the time eating difficulties become visible or diagnosable, harm has often been accumulating for years.
That’s why prevention has to start earlier – and why it has to be systemic.
An education and inclusion issue
We were proud to contribute to the recent All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eating Disorders report on prevention, which highlights the need to move beyond individual-level responses and invest in whole-system change.
From our perspective, eating disorder prevention is also an education issue.
When children feel judged or unsafe in their bodies, it affects:
Attendance and participation
Confidence to speak, move and take up space
Relationships with peers and adults
Sense of belonging within school communities
Addressing these issues is not about telling young people to “feel positive” about their bodies. It’s about building environments that are respectful, inclusive and free from unnecessary harm.
Why we’re marching – and what prevention really means
Eating disorders are complex, and not all eating disorders are rooted in body image or appearance pressures. That’s exactly why our work focuses on the wider systems around children and young people – the school cultures, messages and conditions that can either increase risk or offer protection.
Prevention cannot sit solely within health services, and it cannot rely on individual resilience alone. It has to address the everyday environments where children learn, socialise and form their sense of self.
Building body respect isn’t about fixing individuals or telling young people how to feel about their bodies. It’s about changing the environments they grow up in – so that stigma, judgement and harmful norms are not quietly reinforced as “just part of school life”.
Because body respect is a we issue, not a me issue – and prevention has to be collective.
