When her parents brought her to Children’s Hospital she had wasted away to 105 pounds, emaciated for a girl who is 5 feet 7. Yet she stared in the mirror and saw a fat girl.
She had stopped eating but hid it well. She wore layers of baggy clothes and made a show of grabbing food on her way out. By the time the parents realized what was happening, she was rail thin.
At the hospital, the doctors said their daughter’s heart rate had slowed to the point that if she had continued this way a few more days – not eating a thing, just sucking on mints – she would have died.
The girl, who asked that her identity remain private, thought anorexia nervosa was rare. So did her parents.
That is until they found out that at the same hospital, on the same floor, at the same time, three other girls from her school, East High, were being treated for the same eating disorder.
Is it a coincidence or an epidemic?
Experts say that a school like East, which has about 900 girls, would likely have about nine or 10 girls who have anorexia and about another 18 or so who are bulimic.
Eating disorders don’t get the publicity they did a few years ago, but the sad truth is that more young people are coming in for treatment than ever before, said Ken Weiner, medical director of the Eating Disorder Center of Denver.
Some experts say it’s because more people are seeking treatment. Others believe that more people have the illness.
Thirty years ago, the incidence of anorexia was 0.5 percent of women, and now it is 1 percent, according to the Academy of Eating Disorders. Yet, 10 percent of all women in the U.S. have eating disorder symptoms.
But people connected to it don’t want to talk about it. They feel shame, even though it’s not their fault.
Parents of three of the girls treated this winter at Children’s Hospital declined to talk to me. The mother of the fourth spoke, at length, but asked for anonymity to protect her daughter’s identity.
Even the principal of the school, Kathy Callum, didn’t return my phone calls. Denver Public Schools board member Elaine Gantz Berman confirmed there were four East High School girls being treated for anorexia at the same time at Children’s.
But this isn’t about a school. It’s not about parents. This is a disorder that takes healthy girls and turns them into skeletons – and you never know who will be the next victim. Educating people about the illness is an important step, but people have to be willing to speak up.
The mother who did talk to me said that word got out about her daughter’s anorexia and suddenly she was getting calls from other mothers whose daughters were battling the same mental illness. Meanwhile, at school girls were asking her daughter for help.
“All of these people came out of the woodwork,” the mom told me. She said they’ll talk to her, secretly, but they won’t talk about it publicly.
Toni Saiber, the director of the Eating Disorder Foundation, battled anorexia herself before establishing the nonprofit foundation in Denver. Along with a therapist and a dietitian, she recently gave a presentation on the illness at East High.
There is no quick cure. Traditional recovery takes between seven and 10 years, with patients going in and out of the hospital. A more effective program, called the Maudsley Approach, requires a caseworker who deals with the family at home. If the disorder is caught in the early stages, a patient might be completely rehabilitated within a year. It’s expensive, but in the long run it’s cheaper.
No hospitals offer the program in Colorado, and insurance companies wouldn’t pay for it anyway. Not now. Too many people are quiet about this illness.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
