At the NEDA Annual Gala on May 16th, 2018 at the Pierre Hotel in New York City, Becca McCharen Tran of CHROMAT accepted the NEDA Inspires Seal of Approval Award. Her remarks that evening were powerful and we'd like to share them with you here...

Thank you so much Emme for your kind words. I’m so honored to be here with the other honorees Bruce and Mike.

With Easter can come some inevitable holiday stress. Whether it be interacting with difficult family members or remaining calm around the dinner table, managing self-love can be difficult for many. Here are seven ways to reduce stress and sit back and enjoy Easter and the memories that come with it. 

The first time I learned about “spring break diets,” I was 15 years old. One of my best friends, who was a few years older, was going to a music festival in Florida for spring break. In the weeks leading up to her trip, she started exercising a lot and no longer wanted to share food with me. At first, I thought she was just transitioning to a healthier lifestyle, but as soon as she got back from Florida, she started to binge eat. 

“I’m so glad I get to eat this stuff again,” she told me. “I missed it so much.”

As International Day of Happiness trends across social media, remember that you don’t have to wear a smile all the time. Wherever you are in your mental health journey, there are simple ways to make the world a kinder place. Here are seven tips to get you started: 

Let me start off by saying that I genuinely love giving people compliments. I love spreading kindness and when it comes to compliments, I don’t hold back. With that being said, I will not compliment someone’s weight loss and I don’t think you should either for the following reasons:

"Dear KJ" is a monthly advice column by Dr. Kjerstin "KJ" Gruys, sociologist, author, and body image activist. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology with a focus on the politics of appearance and is the author of Mirror Mirror Off the Wall: How I Learned to Love My Body By Not Looking at It for a Year (Avery Press, 2012).

In the grocery store checkout line in suburban Orange County, Calif., my mom looked at me and said, “watermelon.”

It was our code word for “stand up straight.” I was a preteen, taller than all my friends, and was constantly slouching. The reminder was so constant my mom decided a code word would make it less embarrassing to hear in public.

Each time I would heed my mom’s advice and stand up straight, I would instinctively look down at my chest, where my breasts were just beginning to take shape. 

When I started @iamdaniadriana five years ago, I never thought that I would amass nearly 100,000 followers on Instagram. My dream when I started @iamdaniadriana was to give a voice to those who have felt marginalized from the eating disorder community, people who have felt let down or ignored in the past as they didn’t fit the “typical” look of someone with an eating disorder. 

During my teenage years, I was very confrontational. I was also very angry and embarrassed to be in my body. This anger and shame, encouraged me to yell at and hate the strangers I caught staring at me in public places.