Home » » Eating Disorders » America's Anoreixic Reality Check

America's Anoreixic Reality Check

© Heather Mudgett.

If you've watched Entertainment tonight recently, you've likely seen at least one story about 29 year old Melissa DeHart. Formerly a rookie television reporter, she used to weigh a healthy 135 lbs. After becoming caught up in the debilitating vortex of anorexia, she has wasted away to a frightening 56 lbs.

For 11 years Melissa has been in and out of treatment for anorexia. While she had of regaining normal eating habits and a regular life, the previous treatment attempts failed and she has continued to spiral down to this dangerously low point.

She became so week and frail that she has been unable to maintain a job. After spending over $100,000 for treatment which proved unsuccessful, she and her family no longer had the resources to pay for her treatment.

Last year, Melissa's friends began writing to various television shows, with the hopes of bringing attention to her dire situation. Last fall, the Maury show decided to follow her story and her attempt at recovery. The show paid half of the $25,000 cost for a six-month stay at the Westwind Eating Disorder Clinic in Canada. The Clinic picked up the other half of the cost.

Although Melissa realized that the stay at Westwind might be her last chance at treatment, she found recovery still remained out of reach. After completing her stay she found she was still struggling with the same demons. Unsupervised and terribly fragile, she reached suicidal depths. She says she came to the realization that the disorder would likely kill her. "I think it's going to kill me," she said of her condition, "If I don't get help soon, I don't honestly think that right now I will make it through the month ... I'm an anorexic purger and that's when it gets dangerous, because I can be fine and drop out at any moment. And that's how KAREN CARPENTER died. You're fine, then all of a sudden, out of the blue, you're dead. I'm starting to get scared now."

After following her's story on Entertainment Tonight, Melissa was put in touch with DR. IRA SACKER, a world-renowned, eating-disorders specialist who is the co-author of Dying to be Thin: Understanding and Defeating Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia -- A Practical, Life-Saving Guide and the founder of H.E.E.D. (Helping End Eating Disorders). Dr. Sacker performed an 'intervention' on Melissa, and assisted her in checking into a new recovery program at The The Willough at Naples Clinic in Florida.

The copyright of the article America's Anoreixic Reality Check in Eating Disorders is owned by Heather Mudgett.. Permission to republish America's Anoreixic Reality Check in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.