By Dylana Milobar

Scale-smashing to continue after Eating Disorder Awareness Week

Feb 7, 2019 | 4:10 PM

KAMLOOPS — What is often a quiet struggle has recently been given a loud voice in Kamloops. 

Eating disorder awareness advocates have found a ‘smashing’ way to educate, and garner support for people suffering from eating disorders.

While Eating Disorder Awareness Week wraps up today, the Days of Action scale-smashers will be continuing to promote their cause.

Marlene Hibbs is one of the voices behind the Days of Action group, which began their national scale smash challenge in Kamloops last month to raise awareness around eating disorders.

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“The scale represents diet culture. We do place a lot of emphasis on how we look. We think ‘Oh that person looks a certain way, so they’re healthy’, and it’s not so simple.”

Hibbs is a long-time eating disorder and mental health awarness advocate, especially around people self-advocating and coming forward to get treatment for the disorder or illness.

“We’ve got to change the narrative. It’s so important that people report,” she explains. “Because if you don’t report, it’s not real and then we don’t have money for research, and it just becomes this awful stigma and it’s killing people.”

With two to three per cent of the Canadian population impacted by eating disorders, in 2017, the Interior had between 15,139 to 22,708 people struggling with an eating disorder — a stat Hibbs knows all too well.

“So I figured out I had an eating disorder when I was 27 on my own. I used to do body building, I was at a provincial level, I am a very strong athlete, and I hid my disorder in these things because I had binge eating,” she explains.

Carla Mantie, an IHA practice lead in mental health and substance use, says along with Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa, health care professionals see a variety of eating disorders.

“But theres also ARFID, which is avoidant-restrictive. And then there is binge eating disorder, orthorexia, there’s a lot,” she explains. “Those are the main ones that we see.”

Mental health struggles leading to an unhealthy relationship with food is not an issue just impacting adults or teens either.

Many kids may have something much deeper going on than just disliking their dinner, so Mantie recommends parents to speak to a doctor if they feel something more is happening.

“Because I think it’s easy to just chalk it up to ‘Oh he’s picky’, or ‘Oh she’s picky’ and it’s important to help early to be able to impact the prognosis,” she explains.

Awareness campaigns are all part of the effort to boost information around eating disorder prevention and early intervention.

“We’ve gotten better at being able to talk about it. We’ve gotten better at saying I’m affected, or my family is affected, or my friends are affected,” Mantie explains. “I mean, let’s be honest, one in four people are affected.”

With that conversation started, IHA has seen people suffering from an eating disorder who are able to self-advocate and come forward to their doctors.

“Doctors only get five hours of training in eating disorders, so we can’t expect them to be experts,” she explains. “So we’ve provided tools to be able to allow them to ask the difficult questions, and then know what to do with it next.”

Those tools include intensive need supports in place to prevent eating disorders from getting to the point where those suffering wind up in the hospital.

Despite the end of Eating Disorder Awareness Week, Days of Action will continue their scale smashing, and raising awareness throughout western Canada. Their Facebook page can be accessed here.

For more information on resources to access within Interior Health, click here.