Alanah is a Brisbane-based Accredited Exercise Physiologist (AEP, Hons.) with an advanced scope in trauma-informed care and eating disorder recovery.
Alanah has a deep passion for supporting people to explore and experience a trauma-informed and life-enhancing relationship with movement. She, herself, has recovered from a history of undiagnosed Orthorexia Nervosa and Body Dysmorphia and now finds balance and self-worth across a number of areas in life, including spending time with her husband, Sean, hanging with her rescue dog, Lola, having brunch with friends, trail running and resistance training, and seeking out extreme sports when she travels!
Alanah is neurodivergent (diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder late 2023) and lives with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She occupies multiple privileges and does her best to use these as platforms to help amplify the voices and experience of others. Alanah works primarily with and for people who are seeking a whole-person approach to movement, across physical, emotional, social, cultural, and other dimensions of wellbeing, and she enjoys working with people who are neurodivergent, people living with an eating disorder, people living in a bigger body, the LGBTQIA+ community, people from diverse cultural backgrounds, people with a history of trauma, and people who are navigating co-occurring physical and/or psychological conditions such as persistent fatigue and pain, hypermobility, autoimmune conditions, metabolic conditions, anxiety, depression and more.
Alanah practices from whole-person, trauma-informed, strengths-based, intersectional, risk-reduction, size-inclusive and other evidence-based frameworks, and positions the wonderful people she works with and for as the valuable experts of their experience and herself as a collaborator walking alongside them.
Alanah has been nominated for the 2024 Australian Exercise Physiologist of The Year with Allied Health Awards Australia, is an invited clinical educator for exercise physiology students with the University of Queensland, a published academic author, and an advisor to the CEO of her governing body, Exercise and Sports Science Australia (ESSA). Alanah is the co-chair of the first ever Australian and New Zealand Academy For Eating Disorders (ANZAED) “Movement and Exercise Special Interest Group”, is an invited expert author in Australia’s inaugural position stand on movement in eating disorder recovery, and is the first exercise physiologist to be invited by ANZAED to be on the international conference organising committee and conference session Chair.
Alanah has completed specialised training in trauma-informed care, size-inclusive care, and eating disorder recovery, and is a recognised Size Inclusive clinician by Size Inclusive Healtyh Australia (SIHA). Alanah is a member of SIHA, as well as ESSA, ANZAED, and National Eting Disorders Collaboration. Alanah is an invited writer and presenter for Exercise and Sports Science Australia, Education in Nutrition, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Queensland University of Technology, Queensland Academy of Sport, Well+Good, the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, Queensland Eating Disorder Service, Eating Disorders Queensland, and other organisations. She has presented at annual national and international conferences for the Academy for Eating Disorders, Australia and New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders and the Queensland University of Technology SPRING Symposium, and has fulfilled her role as an invited conference committee member at an international conference. Alanah has been nominated for exercise physiologist of the year with the 2024 Allied Health Awards, is a cofounding member of ANZAED’s inaugural movement and exercise special interest group, and is a cofounding director of the Therapeutic Exercise Alliance for Eating Disorders.
Alanah is also a previous cofounding director and board member of the Safe Exercise at Every Stage team who helped create the first international clinical guidelines for the safe management of movement in eating disorder recovery, including for adults, elite athletes, and soon, also for children and adolescents. Further, Alanah founded and facilitates three peer-led group movement classes, “Reclaiming Movement”, “Reclaiming Movement - Strength” and ”8-weekly trauma informed movement excursions”, all designed with and for people who would like to move in a physically, emotionally and socially informed setting. Finally, Alanah has also created the “Life Enhancing Movement Framework”, set to be released for public purchase at the end of the year. She is also developing a movement app to increase access and support for movement internationally.
