More Support Needed To Tackle Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are a "growing problem" yet there's still not enough support - that's the message from a former anorexia sufferer from Hull and a mum whose daughter had the illness.
A former anorexia sufferer from East Yorkshire says more support is needed for those going through an eating disorder.
24-year-old dancer Heidi Norton from Hull developed the disease at the age of 18.
As part of Eating Disorder Awareness Week - she's using her story to help increase people's understanding of the disease.
Heidi explains just how bad her illness got:
"I was dancing in front of a mirror for a lot of hours a day and unsatisfied with the way I saw myself, I put myself on an extreme diet. I wasn't eating much and exercising a lot and started fainting in classes by the end of it. It took me a few years to pull myself out of that vicious circle.
"An eating disorder is something within that makes your behaviour change so it was actually a fear of being fat, it was a dislike of the way I looked and actually until I could change the way I saw myself, I couldn't change my behaviour."
She says like many other mental health conditions, people are reluctant to confront the issue:
"Mental health is something that a lot of people shy away from and when we say mental health it means that it's the way you feel and think about yourself, that's what the illness is. It's the distorted way that we see ourselves and it's the really negative ways that we think about our bodies and who we are."
Heidi says there wasn't enough support when she suffered with the disease and says getting the right help and advice is vital in overcoming it:
"I went to a couple of groups, I also spoke to a councillor. Just speaking to someone who wasn't in the situation that I was in and talk to freely really helped. It's important to be able to voice your feelings and it is difficult but it is worth the effort because my life is completely different now."
Marg Oaten from Hull set up the SEED Eating Disorders Support service in Hull after her daughter, Gemma, developed anorexia at the age of 10.
She agrees more help is needed to tackle the "growing problem" of eating disorders and says there's still a lack of services for sufferers.
She told Viking FM:
"One in five, and some even say one in four people develop an eating disorder and if you equate the population, there may be around 16,000 people in Hull and the East Riding who may have an eating disorder.
"An eating disorder has a profound effect on everybody who is a part of their life and going back when Gemma developed the illness, there was nowhere to turn, no information or services and we just didn't understand what an eating disorder was. We recognised lots and lots of gaps in services so when we opened the charity that was all based on personal experience.
"Gemma started to lose weight, she started to scrutinise contents of anything that she ate and we noticed a change in character and I think it was that sadness and that emptiness at that point that I knew something was really, really wrong.
"She went down to critical level and that was one of the turning points in making sure people understand the medical risks of eating disorders because she was living on 5 cornflakes and a glass of water a day and basically she was dying."
Marg says the support wasn't there for her daughter during her illness:
"We kept saying that she'll be seeing somebody next week but little did we know she could have been gone at any point. We honestly thought that all her needs would have been met through the services that were provided but in truth, the medical side of her problems weren't being met it was just the psychological side."