ROSETOWN, Sask. – Denise Hynd used to do 3,000 sit-ups a night in a personal battle of the bulge.
She became compulsive about flattening her tummy, she told the recent annual meeting of the Saskatchewan Women’s Institutes.
But it was not a healthy pattern. It was part of her 10 years as a bulemic (binging and throwing up food) and four years as an anorexic (severely limiting calorie intake.)
“People used to be seen as fat, lazy and weak but it is a serious matter whether you are starving yourself to death or eating yourself to death.
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“It’s painful to be ridiculed for a weight situation.”
Hynd now works with the Bridgepoint Centre for Eating Disorders located in Milden, Sask. The program takes in up to eight Saskatchewan teenagers and adults for 25-day sessions to deal with their eating problems. The program relies heavily on peer discussions and counselling in a rural residential setting. It is not a hospital, said Hynd. The people who attend must be medically stable. Bridgepoint stays in contact with its former clients for a year and they often return during that time for refresher courses.
“The message is not about food or weight. It’s about living again.”
Hynd said people with eating disorders need nurturing because they often substitute food for love. They feel self loathing, partly because of society’s message about staying thin or the penchant for instant results, whether it’s fast food or responding to a crying child with a cookie instead of a hug.
Hynd said when she was bulemic and anorexic she thought God had given up on her because she was a bad person.
“People don’t understand how complicated it is. They say ‘just eat.’ But it’s more than that.”
Bridgepoint is run by Saskatchewan Health, the local rural community and Midwest Health District. When the Milden hospital was closed in 1993, locals put forward several proposals to make it usable.
The eating disorders centre was the one that won over health officials. Hynd said they agreed to fund Bridgepoint because conventional medical and psychiatric treatment was not working.
The centre receives $200,000 a year for the next three years. In its first year, it put 72 people through its program. Hynd estimates 7,500 Saskatchewanians have eating disorders.
