I have no updates on Melissa at this time. I continue to check Entertainment Tonight but have not seen anything... I'll let you know if I find out anything. For listings in your area go to http://et.tv.yahoo.com/
The Poster Child is a Spokeswoman Now
Melissa DeHart is a 29 year old woman suffering from disordered eating for eleven years. Now, as a severely underweight purging anorexic, Melissa has been telling her story to the media in hopes of getting some treatment in return for the publicity. She's been on the Maury Povich show and Entertainment Tonight. She did earn a stay at the Westwinds residential treatment center for eating disorders in Canada after appearing on Maury...
While some people may think it is tacky to go public with one's personal struggles, I think the degree of information that is missing on eating disorders as well as the money that is lacking for treatment for eating disorders allows for this kind of publicity to be seen as entirely understandable, if not heroric!
I sent Melissa an e-mail through the Entertainment Tonight website thanking her for her courage and, most importantly, for trying so hard in every interview to descriibe how viciously painful and unglamourous and ugly living with an eating disorder truly is.
Based on her shocking appearance, people may just stand up and listen to what she has to say and that would benefit everyone who suffers with an eating disorder... because she describes the binges, purges, constant obsession and loss of everything else in her life (friends, career, family) with chilling accuracy.
Melissa's story is an on-going one and has been a feature on Entertainment Tonight, though not recently.
I have no Updates yet.
The following article was taken from: http://et.tv.yahoo.com/celebrities/2003/10/30/anorexiaandhollywoodintv/
A n o r e x i a & H o l l y w o o d
October 30, 2003
She weighs just 56 pounds -- but is Hollywood to blame? Tonight, the ET Insider investigates the story of a young woman's battle with anorexia -- and the overwhelming pressure to be thin in Hollywood.
"I don't see myself as fat but I feel that way," MELISSA DeHART tells our own JANN CARL. "I just feel fat, even though I know that I'm skinny, and that's so hard because it's so irrational. But yet, I really do at this moment."
Once a rookie TV reporter in Louisiana with a promising career, Melissa started dieting at the age of 17. She weighed 135 pounds. Now, at 29, she's nearly half her previous size. Over the last 11 years she has unsuccessfully sought treatment for anorexia nervosa and bulimia in the hopes of regaining normal eating habits and a normal life. But Melissa's condition has not improved -- her body is so weakened that maintaining a job has become impossible and she and her family have spent over $100,000 for treatment and no longer have the resources to cover costs.
"It's an ugly and secretive disease and people can hide it so well," explains Melissa. "I was very good at hiding it until I started to lose the weight. But no one knew that the Melissa who you know that thought she had her life together was home at night eating tons of food and throwing up in garbage dumpsters in the middle of the night."
Last year, Melissa's friends began a letter-writing campaign to various TV shows to bring attention to her plight, and last fall "Maury" decided to cover her story and follow her attempts at recovery. The show paid half of the $25,000 cost of Melissa's recent six-month stay at the Westwind Eating Disorder and Recovery Center in Canada, and the center paid the rest.
Melissa realized because of her financial situation, this might be her last opportunity to make a change. Still, the disease made it extremely difficult for her to help herself and she remains in serious trouble. Now living unsupervised and in a fragile state, she says she has been suicidal and her body is beginning to shut down, as she often passes out and wakes up in a paralyzed state.
"I think it is going to kill me," says Melissa about her condition. "If I don't get help soon I don't honestly think that right now I will make it through the month ... I'm an anorexic purger and that's when it gets dangerous, because I can be fine and drop out at any moment. And that's how KAREN CARPENTER died. You're fine, then all of a sudden, out of the blue, you're dead. I'm starting to get scared now."
Watching Hollywood has not made the battle any easier for Melissa, who acknowledges that Tinseltown's obsession with body image can be psychologically damaging to the average person. "I just constantly compare myself to [the stars]" says Melissa, "and if they're thin it was very, very hard on me ... You're seeing the movie stars, you're seeing the glamour and you're seeing all of these perfect people, and when you take your average girl, these are our role models in society that we choose to be, these are the people we most look up to. So in order to be somebody, I have to be beautiful, and it's just very hard."
You can e-mail Melissa with your comments and encouragement by going to this website yourself: http://et.tv.yahoo.com/celebrities/2003/10/30/anorexiaandhollywoodintv/
For more information on anorexia nervosa, bulimia and other eating disorders, go to www.nationaleatingdisorders.org or call the toll-free healthline at 1-800-931-2237.
I hope you get better, Melissa, I know that you can! And I can't wait because your story of recovery and fighting for life against the eating disorder monster would be such an inspiring story!!
a copy of the e-mail I sent:
Dear Melissa, I want to thank you for having the courage to go on television and tell everyone listening that day-to-day life with an eating disorder is full of pain. Thank you for being brutally honest and candid about the dark and ugly sides of eating disorders. Thank you for taking such risks. And please understand that if you have it in you to take such risks, you can take the risk that is recovery too. I believe in you and I can't wait to see your come-back story!!
Much love, respect and healing energy,
Lisa Arndt, eating disorder s survivor & therapist
Melissa has her own website, with updates from her journal... check out her link: updates on Melissa http://www.angelfire.com/stars4/melissadehart/ and another article on Melissa, published after her appearance on Maury is linked below it's from Durango, CO: http://www.msnbc.com/local/durango/news030215_2.asp?cp1=1
My thoughts on the whole situation are everchanging - but here are a few -
I am torn. On one hand I'm so glad Entertainment Tonight is covering this important story. On the other hand, it seems like the rest of the show is often about bodies, dieting, looking good, etc., which I guess is what Hollywood is about. I just wish people would understand that Hollywood was established based on the idea of creating illusions - not reality. Would it help if everyone understood what goes on behind the scenes in creating those images we've all just grown used to? What if magazines came with an explaination that all photos within it have been re-touched and run through a computer? Would we be more gentle when judging ourselves??
Melissa's story ~ So, how will it end?
I wonder what the results will be... what will media coverage of Melissa's story ultimately result in? Maybe the public will be more educated, realize eating disorders are serious, difficult psychological and physiological sicknesses? Maybe insurance companies will have less and less excuse to deny their clients' care for eating disorders.
Or maybe the media coverage of her story will later be deemed as "triggering" to a thousand girls and accused of "teaching" them how to be anorexic...? possibly maybe ('course, I support sex education in school, too)
My hope would be that Melissa gets well, becomes a kick-ass, strong television journalist and uses her fame and profession to slam the reality of eating disorders in our culture's face... so that we can no longer deny the media's roll in all this body hate... so that we can no longer deny that people with eating disorders need treatment... so that Melissa will find out that all of her pain & suffering might just be worth it...
how does that sound? ^_^
Have you floated here through a search and don't know what's hit you? To visit this tricky web I've weaved... you may want to start at the beginning... if you do, click here: catch me up!
You are starving the little girl or boy that you once were. You are purging and bingeing
An on-going official WARNING... this section, as with my entire website (and everyone elses for that matter), some people may find disturbing... so beware. (and trust me, I would stop writing warnings if people would accept that they have free will to turn their computers, televisions, & radios off)
But really anyone can find anything disturbing.
this website is a creation of Lisa Arndt, M.A. Trinity Copyright 2004
that child. And you are sending such horrific messages that if you were literally that child's parent you could lose custody for mental, emotional and physical abuse. You have become a perpatrator of violence.
...Which is not beautiful.
Which is not something you (or anyone) should strive to become.
Andrea (below) beat her inner child to death. The little girl that Andrea once was did not deserve to die a slow painful death of starvation, loneliness, guilt, pain, obsession, fear after years of self-hate.
