Our Founder
A nonprofit born from lived experience
After an eating disorder nearly ended her life, Chelsea Roff started Eat Breathe Thrive to ensure all people have support to recover from eating disorders.
A decade since its inception, Eat Breathe Thrive has helped over ten thousand people across forty-two countries on their path to recovery. Under Chelsea's direction, Eat Breathe Thrive programs have achieved recognition and validity, backed by four separate scientific studies, including two randomized controlled trials.
Eat Breathe Thrive began as a personal mission to transform how we support people with eating disorders. Founder Chelsea Roff, drawing on her own recovery, saw that while treatment is essential, it often leaves gaps—particularly in helping people reconnect with their bodies and sustain recovery in everyday life.
Relapse is common, not from lack of motivation, but from a lack of ongoing support. Chelsea envisioned a model to bridge that gap—one grounded in embodied practice, experiential skill-building, and peer support. Not a replacement for treatment, but an extension of it.
How a Rooftop Campaign Launched Eat Breathe Thrive
In 2013, Chelsea quit her job and launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $50,000 and start a nonprofit under the Give Back Yoga Foundation. After 44 days, the campaign had raised $19,000—not enough to launch the organization. Desperate to close the gap, Chelsea took a bold step: she climbed onto a rooftop on Main Street in Santa Monica, unrolled a yoga mat, and vowed to stay there until the full amount was raised. For five days, her widely publicized rooftop yoga strike—#OccupyYouAreBeautiful—captured attention and donations. On day five, the campaign hit $50,000, and Eat Breathe Thrive was born.
Years later, Chelsea returned to the treatment center where she had once been a patient—this time as a professional. That visit sparked the creation of a group-based intervention, first piloted in treatment centers and later developed into a formal program. This became the core of Eat Breathe Thrive.
Since then, the organization has grown into an international nonprofit delivering prevention and recovery programs across clinical, educational, and community settings. We’ve partnered on four peer-reviewed studies—including two multisite randomized controlled trials—and reached over 17,000 people in 58 countries, working with schools, treatment centers, and underserved communities around the world.
