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Show Local -Anorexia victims seek support group By CHERIE HUBER Ingrid W. is an attractive 20-year-old Bountiful Bounti-ful girl who teaches ballet at a preschool and is majoring in psychology at Weber State College. Col-lege. But five years ago her doctor wondered if she would survive to her next birthday. Ingrid was suffering from anorexia and literally liter-ally starving herself to death. Her problems began when she was 14. Now 20, Ingrid looks back and knows she is lucky to be alive. That's the reason Ingrid is telling her story here in the Clipper and to other groups in the area. Anorexia for Ingrid began easily enough. She saw that her talented younger sister was getting a great deal of attention. Ingrid wanted to be "special" too. Her young mind decided that she could become special by losing weight. She started dieting and soon her weight had dropped from 108 pounds to 63. "I don't remember much about that time in my life except that I limited myself to a pickle a day. I was obsessed with being thin. I would dream about food, and think about food. But I wouldn't eat." As a result of her obsession, that summer she was placed in Primary Children's Hospital for three months where she was put through behavior be-havior modification so she could relearn to eat. By the time she was released from the hospital she weighed 95 pounds. According to Ingrid, while she had put on weight the basic problems of her insecurity had not improved and the episode in the hospital left her with even a greater feeling of loss of love and nurturing. She was soon so starved that she began constant con-stant eating. This backlash from anorexia is called bulimia, the great hunger. Her weight increased 60 pounds in five months. Then a friend said "Why don't you throw up?" It seemed like a magical solution and soon she was doing that every time she ate. "Later I realized that my magical solution had placed me on the very edge of a dangerous cliff; that I was not only in danger of destroying the electrolite balance of my system but I was also in danger of rupturing my stomach or throat," she says. It was about this time that a Salt Lake teenager teena-ger died after taking a large amount of baking ' soda to induce vomiting. Ingrid was frightened of what was happening in her own life but she didn't talk about it. "There's a lot of lying involved, because you don't want people to find out. Bulimia comes from all the other problems you should handle. And the longer you go without talking about the problem the harder it is to get over. The Bulimia Buli-mia masks the underlying problem," she explains. ex-plains. "There are no support groups here in Bountiful. Boun-tiful. So many young people are too young to drive to support groups in Salt Lake. Therapy is expensive too. It can cost about $100 a week. What sufferers need is someone who understands under-stands the problem who they can talk to." That's why Ingrid would like to form a support sup-port group for the Bountiful area. Others who would be interested can call her at 295-4886. Ingrid has done a lot of research and reading on anorexia and bulimia which has helped her understand and cope with her problems. Studying psychology at Weber State has helped her too. But an even better help has been to have a close friend who has given her support and who she can tell everything. Anorexia and bulimia, Ingrid says, are not only devastating to the victim but to the family of the victim. The typical sufferer is usually shy, a perfectionist perfec-tionist who becomes obsessed with being thin, special and beautiful. "If I could just reach my perfect body weight, everything else will tall in place. That's what I thought," Ingrid says. Ingrid feels that many girls are under pressure press-ure to become or stay thin and they need to know the risks that come from using unhealthy methods of weight control and unrealistic weight goals. "Once I took 15 over-the-counter diuretics because I had weighed myself and my weight had gone up a little. I became so weak I couldn't walk. I was in bed for a week. I thought then, I have to stop. I'm killing myself," my-self," she says. Only this past year has Ingrid started to recover. re-cover. She has had to, learn to keep food down and to control her appetite at the same time. She has also had to learn that she has the power to control her own life. "I've had to teach myself that if I see something some-thing that I like to eat I can have some of it. I have also learned to like myself and my body. I don't weigh myself all the time." Ingrid has been a guest lecturer for the ballet students at the Bountiful School of Ballet. She has also lectured at high schools in Ogden. From 20 to 30 percent of all college girls try bulimia. Anorexia affects roughly one out of every 95 persons in the United States. |