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Eating disorders are often life-threatening conditions that affect people from all socioeconomic levels. According to the Academy for Eating Disorders, an estimated eight million Americans are afflicted with eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, with an overwhelming 90 percent of those being women.
Tara Nabholz of Oakwood is one of those women. “I was attending Miami University in 1994 when I really started losing weight,” Nabholz said. “I had some issues in high school when I had a ruptured appendix and left the hospital weighing 75 pounds, but I managed to regain some of my weight.”
Nabholz was determined not to gain the “freshman 15” she heard so much about and felt a lot of pressure when she entered college. “I just started dropping a lot of weight and about mid-way through the year my roommate was worried that I had anorexia and took me to a counseling center on campus and my mom said I would have to drop out if I didn’t get well.”
Even though at 5’6” tall she weighed just 80 pounds, Nabholz said she still didn’t recognize she had a problem with anorexia. “I was just going along so I wouldn’t have to drop out of school,” she said.
Eventually Nabholz moved back home and couldn’t recognize her illness completely until, she said, she saw a picture of herself in a swim suit. “I think that’s what was pivotal for me,” she said. “I looked so skinny and I knew I needed to do something about it.”
Nabholz began her long path to recovery and went back to school, eventually earning a degree in nursing with a minor in nutrition. “I became more interested in diet, nutrition and health and fitness,” she said. And ultimately, she saved her own life. “I started eating more and I had more energy when I ate so I guess I just really was able to help myself.”
But Nabholz knows she is a rarity. Only about one in ten people receive treatment for eating disorders and many continue to struggle with them throughout their lifetimes.
According to John O’Bryan, president/CEO of Womanline Counseling Center, which has recently opened the Insight Eating Disorders Treatment Program, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. “We decided more (help) was needed,” he said. “By launching the area’s first outpatient eating disorders treatment program with a combined and strengthened emphasis on health, nutrition and counseling, our goal is to help women recover from debilitating effects of their illness.”
Nabholz was hired by the Insight program in May as a client care coordinator after receiving an email about the new program. “I knew when I read about it that this was something I had a passion for,” she said. “I love to counsel people and so I went to talk with them and was hired to help develop the program.”
Prior to coming to Insight, Nabholz worked as a pediatric nurse and never forgot treating children as young as 11 years old struggling with eating disorders. “I always felt like I could make a difference for people ever since taking care of these children,” she said. “I have a personal story and I think that really makes a huge difference. People know I have empathy.”
She also teaches yoga, which, she said, helps her focus on her whole body wellness. “I still have issues and struggle with food and that’s where yoga helps me too,” she said. “I’m learning to appreciate my body more and be kind to it. I love how yoga makes you more mindful of the balance between mind and body.”
The Insight program was developed specifically for women
struggling with eating disorders and participants can talk with a dietitian, a nurse and therapists. The program works on a referral basis since many primary care physicians, psychiatrists, therapists and school counselors are often the first to identify early warning signs of eating disorders in their patients and students.
“It’s an outpatient program so it’s completely confidential,” Nabholz said. “And this is important because I realized myself that it’s mostly not the individuals struggling themselves who are seeking the help. It’s the roommates or the parents or the friends who are picking up the information.”
For more information about the Insight Eating Disorders Treatment Program, log on to insightwomanline.com or call 937-223-3446.
Prevalence through the years
Has the prevalence of eating disorders increased over the years?
Anorexia nervosa: Cases of anorexia nervosa have been described throughout history in many different cultural contexts, with the first medical descriptions dating back to the 19th century. The number of new cases presenting increased up to the 1970s and since then has been stable.
Bulimia nervosa: Bulimia nervosa is a newer disorder and between the 1980s and 1990s there was a dramatic rise in the number of cases presenting with this disorder. The largest proportion of people presenting for treatment being adolescents and young adults.
— The Academy for Eating Disorders
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