This description of Aurora Caporossi 's work was prepared when Aurora Caporossi was recognized by Ashoka in 2025.

Introduction

Aurora Caporossi is a pioneering young leader reshaping Italy’s approach to eating disorders through her nonprofit Animenta, addressing a crisis that affects over 3.6 million people. She brings a transformative vision that reframes food-related issues not as the problem itself but as a coping mechanism for deeper psychological pain. Challenging stigma and outdated clinical norms, Aurora engages communities, institutions, and media to foster awareness, education, and support. Her work has made eating disorders a visible, urgent topic in public discourse, empowering individuals to seek help without shame. Through empathy, innovation, and systemic action, Aurora is building a more inclusive future for mental health in Italy.

 

New Idea

Aurora envisions a society where eating disorders (EDs) are no longer misunderstood or hidden in silence but recognized for what they truly are: the visible tip of a much deeper psychological and emotional iceberg. Rather than being merely about food or body image, EDs are often a means of coping with underlying pain, whether from traumatic life events, relationship issues, physical illness, major life transitions and other triggers. Aurora’s mission is to shift the public narrative—away from outdated, gendered, and superficial understandings—toward a stigma-free, inclusive dialogue that validates the lived experience of all individuals affected. In Italy, where over 3.6 million people are impacted and thousands die each year due to lack of early care and structural support, her vision calls for a collective rethinking of mental health as interconnected with social, cultural, and emotional realities.

Through Animenta, the nonprofit she founded, Aurora is pioneering a comprehensive, community-driven model to address EDs at every level. Her strategy is grounded in normalization: making eating disorders a "pop" topic—something people talk about openly, without shame. Animenta operates a 360-degree support system, including free psychological helplines, Italy’s first dedicated online ED counseling service (Comestai), then a school-based education program for over 40,000 youth, and immersive peer-led experiences through Animenta Camps. The organization also trains 1,500 professionals and volunteers via the Animenta Gym, ensuring sensitive, competent care throughout the support network. By working directly with journalists, influencers, and filmmakers, Aurora helps shape a more accurate, compassionate portrayal of EDs in media—one that reflects diversity, complexity, and truth.

Beyond grassroots engagement, Aurora has taken her advocacy to the policy level. As co-leader of the Lilla Movement, a coalition of 30 organizations, she helped establish Italy’s first national fund to guarantee the inclusion of EDs in the country’s Essential Levels of Care (LEA). Through national demonstrations and political engagement, she is driving systemic reform to address underdiagnosis, long waiting lists, and regional disparities in care. Each March, around International Eating Disorder Awareness Day, Aurora coordinates nationwide events that reach over 2 million people online, uniting experts, survivors, families, and institutions in a shared effort to build awareness and pressure for change. Her leadership is forging a cultural and political shift—one that sees eating disorders not as personal flaws, but as social signals of a deeper, collective unease that demands understanding, support, and action.

 

The Problem  

Eating disorders (EDs) are complex mental illnesses, not simply food-related issues, often rooted in trauma, anxiety, low self-esteem, or the need to regain control after major life events such as physical illnesses, relationship issues, and other significant transitions. EDs include anorexia nervosa (self-starvation), bulimia nervosa (cycles of binge eating and purging), binge-eating disorder (recurrent bingeing without compensatory behaviors), avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), and other specified feeding and eating disorders (OSFED). These disorders can affect individuals of any age, gender, ethnicity, or background and are often marked by obsessive thoughts about food and body image, along with extreme behaviors like fasting, excessive exercise, vomiting, or misuse of laxatives.

Yet, due to stigma and clinical misconceptions, only 6% of individuals receive a diagnosis, usually only noticed when the person is underweight, leading to years of undetected suffering. According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, global ED prevalence rose from 3.4% to 7.8% between 2000 and 2018. EDs are more prevalent among young women (3.8%) than men (1.5%), but men face a higher risk of death due to delayed diagnoses—largely driven by the widespread belief that eating disorders don’t affect them (Eating Disorders Resource Catalogue, 2014). In Italy, over 3.6 million people are affected, with around 4,000 annual deaths.

Despite these alarming numbers, access to care remains deeply uneven. The public health system covers 60% of cases, while 40% of patients rely on mixed public-private services. Only the region of Umbria guarantees all five levels of care, offering tailored treatment based on severity—from outpatient support to inpatient interventions. This integrated model enables continuous therapeutic support, yet patients seeking treatment outside their home region often lose this continuity due to inconsistent regional care structures.

Nationally, political and structural responses remain limited. Although eating disorders were initially excluded from the national budget law, €10 million was reallocated in 2024 through an amendment to the Milleproroghe decree. This temporary fund ensures ongoing care while the new Essential Levels of Care (LEA) are implemented. These updates include 32 free services for anorexia and bulimia but remain insufficient to meet the increasingly understood and growing needs. Social stigma and cultural factors further aggravate the situation. In a country where food and body image carry significant social weight, media and societal norms often promote thinness as a symbol of success and desirability. This narrative reinforces disordered behaviors and marginalizes people who don't fit the stereotypical profile—especially men, older adults, and those with atypical symptoms. Consequently, many avoid seeking help, or are misdiagnosed, worsening long-term outcomes.

The consequences are profound and wide-ranging. EDs have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder, with anorexia sufferers 56 times more likely to die by suicide. Most hospitalized patients present comorbid conditions such as depression, anxiety, or substance use, complicating treatment. Economically, the cost of untreated EDs is substantial, from direct healthcare expenses to reduced productivity and quality of life. Yet only 1 in 10 people receive adequate care. Families often bear this burden in silence, without adequate tools or support. Addressing EDs requires a paradigm shift: recognizing them as mental illnesses with serious health and social implications, ensuring equitable access to comprehensive care, and dismantling the cultural and institutional barriers that perpetuate silence and delay.

The Strategy

Aurora recognized early on that hospitalization alone is not enough to treat eating disorders (EDs). Too often, patients are discharged from clinical settings and left without the necessary tools, support, or continuity to sustain recovery. Aurora understood that what happens after the hospital—those crucial intermediate steps—can determine whether a person relapses or begins to heal. Building on what is considered the most advanced, evidence-based clinical model—still not widely implemented or understood in many countries, including Italy—Aurora focused on translating theory into practice. She identified the missing pieces in the current system and worked to bring them into the world. Her holistic approach addresses not only the physical symptoms of EDs but also their emotional, psychological, and social dimensions. Through her leadership, she created a system that ensures people are accompanied through each stage of their journey—not as patients, but as individuals deserving of ongoing, dignified support.

Her approach offers an alternative to fragmented care by integrating therapy, education, and community support into a seamless, continuous pathway. Aurora’s strategy is built on three foundational pillars: Prevention, Support, and Education. She works in schools and online to break the stigma surrounding EDs and equip students, teachers, and families to act as early responders and change agents. She fosters open conversations and challenges harmful narratives that often go unexamined in classrooms and homes. Beyond awareness, Aurora ensures that those experiencing EDs and their caregivers have access to real, compassionate help through monthly online groups, peer-to-peer support spaces, and listening platforms. To strengthen long-term care, she leads training for professionals and families on the five levels of ED treatment—ranging from hospital care to outpatient therapy involving psychologists, psychiatrists, dietitians, group and family sessions, and general practitioners. She also pioneered immersive programs like Animenta Camp and is working to launch Animenta House, a permanent care facility for 20 individuals, funded through public grants and private partnerships.

As a national advocate, Aurora has positioned herself at the center of systemic change. She co-founded and leads the Lilla Movement, a coalition of ED organizations that has successfully lobbied for policy reforms, including the establishment and renewal of a €10 million national ED fund in Italy. Her work ensures that all regions—regardless of economic disparities—can provide minimum levels of ED care. Aurora also collaborates with journalists, influencers, and filmmakers to shift how EDs are portrayed in the media. Her advocacy efforts directly challenge the societal silence and misinformation that have marginalized those struggling with EDs for decades, especially men, LGBTQ+ individuals, and older adults who are often excluded from the dominant narrative.

Aurora’s impact has been both wide-reaching and deeply personal. She has trained over 40,000 young people across Italy and empowered 1,500 professionals and volunteers with the knowledge and tools to respond to EDs with empathy and skill. Her newest hub in Bologna mobilizes more than 50 volunteers and has already supported over 200 individuals since 2023. While EDs remain her core focus, Aurora is expanding her work to include other interconnected challenges such as bullying, addiction, and youth mental health. Her next goal is international: adapting her model to new cultural contexts and building a youth-led movement across Europe to demand better care, early intervention, and stigma-free conversations about EDs. Recognized with the EU Civil Society Prize and invited to speak at the European Youth Event (EYE) in Strasbourg, Aurora is not just a founder—she is a leading voice in redefining mental health care for the next generation.

 

The Person  

Born and raised in Rome, Aurora grew up navigating the intense expectations of a society that values performance, control, and perfection. She attended a liceo classico—a highly competitive academic path in Italy known for its intellectual rigor and pressure to excel. From the age of three, Aurora trained in dance, a discipline that demanded both technical skill and a specific body image. As she grew older and her body began to change, it no longer aligned with the strict aesthetic ideal of a dancer, challenging her self-perception and fueling a quiet struggle with identity and control. Between the ages of 11 and 13, Aurora began experiencing symptoms of an eating disorder, but she kept them hidden for years, buried under guilt and silence.

Despite these hardships, Aurora was the first in her family to graduate, earning a degree in Communication. While her childhood dream of becoming a gas station attendant reflected a desire to do something simple and useful, her professional path took a more complex turn: first into the tech sector at a cryptocurrency startup, and then—most powerfully—into the social impact space. Along the way, she volunteered with Caritas and the Red Cross, distributing meals and listening to people’s stories. These human moments, shared across tables and sidewalks, helped her see the power of connection, empathy, and being present. Her religion teacher was the first to notice something was wrong, and his support became a turning point. Eventually, she underwent two years of clinical treatment for anorexia nervosa, which marked the beginning of her healing process and her commitment to breaking the silence around eating disorders.

In January 2021, during the stillness of the pandemic, Aurora created Beyond Your Body, a blog and Instagram page where she began documenting her journey—not just through recovery, but toward self-understanding. This platform soon evolved into Animenta, a name inspired by anima (soul) and menta (mind/freshness), reflecting a more holistic vision of mental health. Although she did not come from a clinical background, her lived experience and commitment led her to pursue specialized training in Clinical Eating Disorders. By 2022, she was collaborating with the Eating Disorders Center at ASL Roma 1 and engaging institutions like the Chamber of Deputies to advocate for systemic change. Animenta also became a space for others’ voices: more than 300 people across Europe have shared their stories on its bilingual blog, helping to break stigma and foster community. Animenta also became a space for others’ voices: more than 300 people across Europe have shared their stories on its bilingual blog, helping to break stigma and foster community. Today, over 60,000 people follow Animenta’s social channels daily, seeking connection and a sense of belonging within the community.

Aurora’s “AHA” moment came when she realized her personal story could be a lever for structural transformation. As one of the first Young Changemakers selected by Ashoka Italy, she remained deeply engaged in the network, learning how to build impact sustainably. From a quiet, internal battle to a growing movement that reaches tens of thousands, Aurora’s journey is a testament to the power of vulnerability turned into action. She is now among Europe’s most visible young leaders in mental health, advocating not only for care but for dignity, prevention, and cultural change.