Jayne Mattingly

Jayne’s passion for helping others recover from eating disorders and body image issues was ignited by her own struggles with an eating disorder as a young woman. This led to her gaining a master’s degree in clinical Mental Health Counseling from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, specializing in eating disorder recovery and body image struggles.

Jayne is newly disabled and chronically ill, having been diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, intracranial hypertension, endometriosis, autoimmune disease and spinal cord injury. In under four years time Jayne has undergone 14 brain and spine surgeries plus procedures, as well as, a total hysterectomy. For mobility, she relies on her wheelchair, rollator, and her service dog Wheatie. All of this resulting in an immense amount of what Jayne has coined as Body Grief.

Jayne has used her experience as a young disabled and chronically ill woman to inspire her nonprofit, The AND Initiative. The AND Initiative is a nonprofit that is about gifting AND destigmatizing mobility aids to those with physical disabilities and chronic illnesses that impair their daily mobility.

Jayne talks about eating disorder recovery and body acceptance disability issues daily with her highly engaged community of 20.3k Instagram followers. She has also been featured on NBC News, Apartment Therapy, Business Insider, The Papaya Podcast, Sober Curious, Full and Thriving: An Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast, Fox 24 News Now and more. Jayne is also a “Say It Brave”  Ambassador and Community Partner for one of the most prestigious and well-known eating disorder treatment centers in the United States, Eating Recovery Center (ERC)  In addition, she has sat on numerous speaking panels and has given lectures on eating disorder recovery and mental health to students at the University of Dayton and the Alliance for Eating Disorders organization.

Jayne is a Chicago, Illinois, native and now lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with her husband and pets.