Woman inspired by sibling’s struggle with anorexia designs recovery website to help others

Victoria University of Wellington student Jane Abraham beside a poster advertising her eating disorder recovery website.

After witnessing her sister’s struggle with an eating disorder, 21-year-old Jane Abraham is launching a website to try to help people seeking advice and treatment options.

A former Whanganui Collegiate School student who grew up in Turakina, Abraham is in her final year of a Bachelor of Design Innovation and Bachelor of Commerce degree at Victoria University of Wellington.

She created the website Empower.ed to outline the recovery journey, diagnosis and professional treatment available for eating disorders as part of a Wellington-based awareness campaign during her honours-level project.

Her sister’s journey with anorexia motivated her to want to try to change public awareness about eating disorders.

“I think when my sister was facing her recovery, it was really hard because of the stigma.

“She faced so much pressure to get healthy or ‘just eat’ when it is actually a mental disorder.

“People don’t really understand that the power is taken away from that person and they need love and patience to recover.”

Messages about “getting in shape” or having “great discipline around food” were probably the worst things for teenagers to hear when their natural shape was growing, she said.

“It often results in teenagers trying to retain a ‘healthy image’, which is simply unobtainable and quite distorted.”

She said she hoped her online resource and Empower.ed Instagram page could comfort people to know they weren’t alone in their journey.

“I think it was a huge breakthrough for my sister when we said this is something bigger than you and it’s not ever been your fault, but we’re going to tackle anorexia as a family together.

“It’s often the people with the softest hearts who place the hardest expectations on themselves.”

Through her university research she became aware of the barriers people can face when trying to access treatment for an eating disorder.

It made her want to recognise people “who are often left out of the conversation” in her campaign.

“There is a really wide range of experiences that may not have physical food restrictions like anorexia.”

New Zealand Eating Disorders Clinic co-director Kellie Lavender said New Zealand’s public health services for eating disorder treatment were not funded to cover all eating disorder diagnoses.

“There’s a problem with that,” Lavender said.

“They’re stretched, limited and under-resourced, and because of that it often means that people who might not be low weight enough or ‘bad enough’ may not get treatment.

“But that weight criteria does not indicate the level of severity.”

She said often services were funded to cover only a diagnosis of anorexia or bulimia. Binge eating disorder was not funded in the public system and some services were not funded to cover avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.

“There’s probably a range of people not accessing treatment.”

Lavender said in rural communities there was also a lack of experts to treat eating disorders.

“It’s always been a problem and still is.”

Abraham said her family experienced the gap in the number of rural services available: “Obviously, we navigated that as a family in Whanganui.”

She said it concerned her to discover during her research that Māori and male patients could often be overlooked by GPs when presenting with eating disorder symptoms.

For Māori patients, treatment was often not culturally appropriate, she said.

Lavender said Abraham’s resource would be useful because it offered a non-clinical perspective and “any education about eating disorders was fantastic”.

Abraham said a lack of awareness about eating disorders could make recovery more painful for people.

“Recovery can be really pressurised and assuming someone can ‘simply eat’ to get better, that would be like saying you can heal a broken leg with sheer willpower.

“No one wants to be talking about the fact that they’re losing control over their food or thoughts, and are really self-critical.”

Dealing with the illness as something external to the person could be empowering, she said.

“I think it’s also important that parents and loved ones know it’s not an isolated experience or as a result of bad parenting or circumstances.

“Eating disorders are no one’s fault.”

An eating disorder could affect anyone at any stage of life, but recovery was always possible, she said.

The Empower.ed website can be accessed at https://empowered-aotearoa.webflow.io/

EATING DISORDERS

Do you need help?

• Get in touch with Eating Disorders Association of New Zealand if you need help finding a private provider in your area by phoning Ph 0800 2 EDANZ or emailing info@ed.org.nz.

If you need urgent help, reach out to your GP or local mental health provider.

Or if you need to talk to someone else:

• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 or 09 5222 999 within Auckland (available 24/7)

• Youthline: Call 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat.

• Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 (available 24/7)

• Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)

Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.