BEAT - Beat Eating Disorders

Beat is the largest charity supporting people with eating disorders in Northern Ireland, and a UK-wide organisation.

Our vision is an end to the pain, suffering and loss of life caused by eating disorders. We do this by focusing on three priority areas: early intervention, family & carer empowerment, and knowledge & understanding.   

We help people with eating disorders and those around them to understand their illness, get treatment and achieve a lasting recovery. We draw on our experience of working directly with tens of thousands of individual people each year to highlight the challenges faced by people with eating disorders in our campaigns for better and more generous national policies and for practical changes to the health care system. In doing so, we strive to achieve better equity of access to, experience of and outcomes from treatment, regardless of anyone’s personal characteristics, diagnosis, social background or location.    

Our aims include:  

The average delay from falling ill to starting treatment to reduce to less than 12 months  

Sufferers, families and carers to receive high-quality care and information at all stages of treatment   

High-quality research to lead to the emergence of better treatment and eventually realistic prevention strategies.  

Every year, we help individuals who are ill, and their families, on tens of thousands of occasions. Beat’s helpline and online support groups operate every weekday including all bank holidays. We provide guided self-help for binge eating disorder, and training for family, carers and health and education professionals.  

All our work is shaped by people with lived experience and guided by advice from our panels of clinical experts.