The Stories We're Sold: Unpacking BIEDAW 2026 and Wellness Culture

Every September, Australia turns its attention to body image and eating disorders through Body Image and Eating Disorders Awareness Week (BIEDAW). In 2026, the theme is "The Stories We're Sold," and it asks a confronting question:

When a diet, a fitness app or a wellness trend promises to fix your body, who actually benefits?

What is BIEDAW, and what counts as disordered eating?

Disordered eating involves unhelpful thoughts or behaviours around food, eating or body image, and can be influenced by family history, self-esteem, social pressure or stress. Eating disorders are diagnosed mental health conditions that often require professional treatment, and can be experienced in different ways, including Binge Eating Disorder, Bulimia Nervosa, Anorexia Nervosa, Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, and Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder, each with different signs, symptoms and experiences.

BIEDAW has a longer history than many people realise. It grew out of 'Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa Awareness Week', launched in 1992, and became 'National Body Image and Eating Disorders Awareness Week by 1995. Today it's led by the Eating Disorder Alliance, a coalition including the Butterfly Foundation, Eating Disorders Queensland, Eating Disorders Victoria, Eating Disorders Families Australia, the Australia & New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders, and the National Eating Disorders Collaboration. It runs from Monday 7 to Sunday 13 September in 2026, with a different theme each year.

The 2026 theme: The Stories We're Sold

This year, the focus shifts to something almost everyone encounters daily: wellness culture. Diet and wellness industries generate enormous revenue by convincing people their bodies need improving. BIEDAW 2026 pushes back on that model, encouraging Australians to question the health and wellness messages they encounter every day and ask who really benefits from them.

This shows up everywhere, celebrity-endorsed diet products, fitness influencers promising quick transformations and even wellness trends framed as self-improvement that are really about appearance. Even well-meaning content about "clean eating" or step counts can quietly reinforce the idea that our bodies are a problem to solve. The theme doesn't suggest that health and fitness are inherently harmful but it's asking us to separate genuine wellbeing from marketing dressed up as health advice, and to notice how much of what we're sold is really about profit, not care.

What true wellness actually looks like

If wellness culture often sells appearance change as the goal, BIEDAW 2026 offers a different definition. True wellness is less about transforming your body and more about how you relate to it. That includes things like:

• Self-trust: learning to listen to your own body's signals rather than outsourcing that judgement to an app, a scale or a trend.

• Joyful movement: moving your body because it feels good, not as a punishment or a means to change how you look.

• Food freedom: being able to eat without guilt, fear or rigid rules attached.

• Mental health support: recognising that wellbeing includes your mental and emotional health, not just physical markers.

  
  

None of these can be bought as a product, which is part of the point. Real wellness tends to be quieter and slower than what gets marketed to us.

Why this matters beyond one awareness week

Body image and eating concerns don't stay contained to a single week in September. They can affect anyone, regardless of age, gender, body size, culture or background, and they aren't something you can always identify just by looking at someone. Disordered eating and eating disorders can affect physical health, mental health, relationships, work and everyday functioning, often well beyond what's visible on the surface.

Awareness weeks like BIEDAW matter because they create space for conversations that are easy to avoid. If this year's theme resonates with you, it might be worth noticing how much of your own relationship with food, exercise or appearance has been shaped by messaging you couldn't choose whether to absorb.

If you or someone you love is struggling

If any of this feels close to home, you don't have to navigate it alone. Support is available, and reaching out early tends to make the biggest difference.

🦋 Butterfly Foundation National Helpline: 1800 33 4673

(7 days a week, 8 am–midnight AEST/AEDT). You can also chat online or email through their website.

If you're looking for ongoing, professional support around body image, disordered eating, or the mental health impacts of wellness culture, our team at Mindset Health Hub is here to help, get in touch to find out more about how we work.