Welcome

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

By Elizabeth Capper, intern at The Emily Program

Several nights a week, I find myself lying wide awake at 4am struggling to persuade myself back to sleep. Perhaps what really is on my mind during these sleepless nights is everyone’s biggest nightmare: our insecurities.

In the last 10 years, the notion that eating disorders are biologically based illnesses has begun to gain significant traction both inside and outside the eating disorder community.

Following “The Decade of the Brain” in the ’90s and the explosion of research in brain chemistry, anatomy, and function, we now better understand how we are susceptible to eating disorders based on a pre-existing neurological status and how our personalities, behaviors, and experiences in eating disorders are all linked.

For Immediate Release

Saint Paul, MN – October 16, 2015 – Senator Amy Klobuchar [D-MN] along with Kitty Westin, Board Member of WithAll, and Jillian Lampert, Chief Strategy Officer at The Emily Program, will host a press conference on Sunday, October 18th at 3pm in support of the Anna Westin Act. The press conference will take place at The Emily Program’s St. Louis Park location (5354 Parkdale Drive, 2nd Floor St. Louis Park, MN 55416).

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

By Liz Rognes, a former Emily Program client in recovery. She is a teacher, writer, and musician who lives in Spokane, WA.

Occasionally, a coworker or an acquaintance will tell me about her new weight-loss diet, or she’ll make some kind of self-deprecating joke about how she shouldn’t have that second cookie. At work, at the store, at the park with other moms, it happens all the time. It’s so ordinary that it seems mundane, expected—especially among women (though I do hear it from men, too). Sometimes it feels like I’m expected to reassure the person who is making the negative comment about their body by directing the attention to my own body, in order to share the feeling of self-disapproval. I used to do this fluently. Without missing a beat, I would reassure the woman who was joking about her body or detailing her new diet, and then I would point at myself, as if to say, “You see? I feel bad about my body, too. You’re not alone. We’re doing what we’re supposed to do.”

It is estimated 95 percent of those who suffer from an eating disorder are between the ages of 12 and 25, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.

That’s why The Emily Program – Cleveland has tailored its programs to meet the individual needs of children and teens, in addition to adults.

A common fact shared with clients and their families is that eating disorders are genetic. When we use terms like “genetic,” it often makes people wonder exactly how this illness might be inherited, especially if no close family members have the same illness. It also may make a parent wonder if there are hidden genetic factors that he/she passed onto the child, which could make a parent feel responsible for causing this illness.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

By Liz Rognes, a former Emily Program client in recovery. She is a teacher, writer, and musician who lives in Spokane, WA.

My toddler is learning how to assert himself. He’ll run over to me, holding on to a pair of red shoes while exclaiming, “Toes! Toes! Toes!” This means that he wants me to put the shoes on his toes. I’ll sit down with him on the floor, his wiggly body in my lap, and I’ll work hard to get those red shoes on his feet. As soon as the shoes are on, he’ll run back to his room, little flashes of red pattering across the hardwood floor, and then he’ll return with a pair of green sandals. “Toes, Mommy!” So I’ll sit down with him again and work hard to get those red shoes off and the green sandals on, all while he’s squirming, moving, and happily watching his feet. And then, as soon as the Velcro is attached, he cheerfully demands the red shoes again.

Like many other eating disorder treatment centers, The Emily Program offers multiple levels of care for adolescents and adults. What makes The Emily Program different is that our services are based in outpatient treatment. As The Emily Program founder Dirk Miller says, “We didn’t start as an inpatient program and develop outpatient services to support that model. The reason is pretty simple: most change occurs as an outpatient. We live our lives as ‘outpatients.’ Ultimately we must apply what’s learned to a life of recovery that we live outside the treatment program.”