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When you hear the phrase “eating disorder,” what do you picture? Perhaps a young white woman, about 5’10”, blonde, with a face you would expect to see in a Hollister advertisement, size 00 (yes, Hollister carries size double zero). Contrary to cultural assumptions, eating disorders do not just plague white cis hetero women. They affect everyone, regardless of race, size, gender, class, or sexuality. However, they don’t affect everyone the same way. Eating disorder research has historically...

The Columbia Gorge Region where I live is a vast rural area larger than Connecticut but with a population of only 75,000. While many people here are doing well, others live in poverty, or have to drive long distances to get to a doctor’s office. In this land of fruit orchards, one in five people regularly run out of food. Mandi Rae Pope was once one of those people. A few years ago, during a difficult pregnancy at the end of her husband’s graduate studies, Pope says she was “counting pennies...

A teenage Icelandic woman is raped by her Australian boyfriend after she’s had too much to drink. In his own immature, conditioned teenage mind, he doesn’t call it rape. Because the media and pornography and the way fathers raise sons and bro’s egg on bro’s, he convinces himself that he was justified in taking what was rightfully his — her body, her vulnerability, her sexuality, maybe even her physical and mental health. She is traumatized by the experience, and in his own way, he is too.

It seems each day’s headlines highlight another high profile politician, entertainer or business executive being accused of sexual misconduct. The activities themselves vary widely, including sexual harassment that may consist of verbal taunting, sexual innuendos, threats of career derailment and physical violence, inappropriate and unwanted physical and sexual contact and rape. Many of us feel betrayed each day by these famous men we have never even met in person. The topic is ubiquitous...

For Peter Cram, an American internist who spent most of his career practicing in Iowa City, Iowa, moving to Toronto in 2014 was an easy decision. He says he is among a handful of American doctors who went north to practice in Canada's single-payer system. Now he doesn't worry about whether his patients can afford treatment. "Everyone gets a basic level of care," he says, which lets him focus on their medical needs instead of their finances. Cram treats his move as a sort of life-size...

SAN JOSE — After a childhood growing up a victim of human trafficking on the streets of San Jose, Diana Carreras was held prisoner by the grip of post-traumatic stress and depression. It was sheer luck that she found Recovery Café San Jose ; a friend asked for a ride to the downtown healing community and training center, a place Carreras hadn’t heard about. But once there, the 59-year-old found the support that helped her overcome the emotional trauma that had consumed her for so long. “When...

In late November, the city of Chicago surpassed 600 homicides —the overwhelming majority from handguns—for the second year in a row, and for only the third time since 2003, according to data reported by the Chicago Tribune. That brings the total to more than 3,400 shootings across the city so far this year. Sadly, in their efforts to address this seemingly intractable epidemic of gun violence , police officials seem to be placing unfounded faith in technology to solve the problem. The...

Editor's note: This is the first person that we've seen who seems to look at his ACEs as the root for his behavior. Morgan Spurlock, the American documentary filmmaker, stepped down from his production company on Thursday, one day after he published a post saying that he had committed sexual misconduct in the past, including settling a harassment allegation and cheating on his wives and girlfriends. An emailed statement from Warrior Poets, the independent production company that Mr. Spurlock...

Public schools in gentrifying neighborhoods seem on the cusp of becoming truly diverse, as historically underserved neighborhoods fill up with younger, whiter families. But the schools remain stubbornly segregated. Nikole Hannah-Jones has chronicled this phenomenon around the country, and seen it firsthand in her neighborhood in Brooklyn. “White communities want neighborhood schools if their neighborhood school is white,” she says. “If their neighborhood school is black, they want choice.”...

Nearly 9 in 10 Americans believe that "a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment is essential to bringing about change in our society." At a time when partisan opinions are so polarized on a range of issues, Republicans and Democrats are relatively similar in believing that society should crack down hard on sexual harassment, a new poll from Ipsos and NPR suggests. About three-quarters of Democrats and about two-thirds of Republicans agreed, for example, that "pretty much every woman has...

Last spring, as the homeless population swelled in the port city of Tacoma, Washington, it faced a problem: water everywhere, but almost none to drink. Of the city’s more than 210,000 people, 1,231 were living unsheltered in January 2017, up from fewer than 500 in 2015. By this spring, many residents—both housed and unhoused—were voicing concerns about living conditions and safety in the city’s encampments. In May, Marilyn Strickland, the city’s mayor, declared homelessness a public health...

ROWNSVILLE, TEXAS — The land agents started working the border between Texas and Mexico in the spring of 2007. Sometimes they were representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers. Other times they were officers from the U.S. Border Patrol, uniformed in green, guns tucked into side holsters. They visited tumbledown mobile homes and suburban houses with golf course views. They surveyed farms fecund with sugar cane, cotton and sorghum growing by the mud-brown Rio Grande. They delivered their...