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By Jennifer-Elise Chase
Seven million women and one million men, only 50 percent of cases
report being cured, ten percent report onset as young as age ten,
and an estimated six percent - 480,000 - die yearly.
Those are the scary statistics the National Association for Anorexia
Nervosa and Associated Disorders reports on America's relationship
with eating disorders, a variety of conditions that for sociocultural,
developmental, environmental and biological reasons lead men and
women to eating disordered behavior.
In an effort to combat the disease in the Bay State, Seda Ebrahimi,
Ph.D. founded the Cambridge Eating Disorder Center (CEDC), a comprehensive
outpatient program dedicated to treating eating disorders. Until
now, CEDC has only accepted patients 16 and older: Ebrahimi estimates
that hundreds, so far, have been helped. But all of that changed
on April 1 when CEDC added something new: an Intensive Outpatient
Program for adolescents ages 12-17, which, according to Ebrahimi,
is the first of its kind in the state.
"I saw there was a void in Massachusetts for intensive outpatient
services for adolescents," says Ebrahimi, who formerly directed
the Eating Disorder Treatment Program at McLean Hospital and is
currently an instructor at Harvard University. Boston Center offers
day treatment and McLean offers programs, too, but according to
Ebrahimi, they all require taking children out of school, long-term,
in order to treat them. What CEDC will offer is a program that is
less disruptive to their daily lives because it will allow them
to remain in school and continue their normal activities, while
attending group sessions and being seen by an outpatient team of
doctors at the CEDC's office.
"For some, [the program] is a thrill because they find it very
supportive, but not in a confining setting," she says. "For outpatients
who need higher care, there's anxiety [regarding] how treatment
will change their lives. They are relieved [that] they can come
to a place that will allow them to stay in school, but also to go
somewhere that feels a bit like home."
If Ebrahimi and her staff of 12 were looking to create a soothing,
healing environment, they have achieved it at their Mass. Avenue
location: a buttery, three-story building with a sign reading simply
"CEDC" sits in the front, giving no allusion to passersby about
what happens inside. Once through the doors, a portrait of a woman
in a white flowing dress, clutching a red rose greets patients.
Ebrahimi chose it because to her it depicted the beauty of a healthy
woman.
"We deal with very bright, very talented women who are so hard
on themselves, so trapped and coping with life in such a self destructive
way," Ebrahimi says. "We help them be kinder to themselves."
CEDC does treat males with eating disorders, but patients are primarily
female, largely, says Ebrahimi, because it's typically easier for
women to come forth to seek help. But regardless of gender, said
Ebrahimi, the disease and the issues that go along with it are the
same. One man, a father of five children who is bulimic, will be
the first in CEDC's evening program, a five evening per week intensive
outpatient program that provides an alternative to hospital-based
treatment.
But the majority of CEDC's patients are college age women. Thanks
to the atmosphere she's tried to create, Ebrahimi says the program
can be a safe place for patients who are dealing with the disease
far from home, by helping them learn social skills like how to create
a support system for themselves, especially in college-dorm environments
where they may know of other students like them who have an eating
disorder but who aren't seeking help.
"I think that … people think eating disorders are about food, and
they're really not," Ebrahimi says. "They manifest through food
- eating it, regretting the feelings that come of it." It's true,
she said, that for a lot of people in society [eating disorders]
are perceived as an appearance issue. And even with patients they
can begin with the benign desire to lose weight, and it's unfortunate
we live in a society that encourages weight loss.
"My heart goes out to the families whose children struggle," she
says. "It can be maddening when someone struggles on such a basic
level."
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