There, we met some of the patients and doctors who treat them. Over the next 25 minutes or so, if you want to access more information because of what youre going to see, then the bbc action line is there to help. Go online to bbc. Co. Uk actionline. First, i started our special broadcast by attending a Group Therapy session, where claire, georgia and anna plus their therapist mary told us their experiences of eating disorders and the treatments they have received. Hello, hi, hello, good morning. Ignore me, do carry on, do carry on. So, do you want to go ahead and pick that object that symbolises for you the healthy identity and the one that symbolises for you the anorexic identity . And put them where makes sense to you next to your boxes. There make sense . Yeah. Yeah, 0k. And georgia, do you want to say what it is about the object that youve picked that makes sense to you about the anorexic identity . So ive picked a gear, which to me, represents being trapped inside my eating disorder, like the real me is trapped inside the illness, kind of like ive drawn in this picture, where i would say this is me, and thats like my eating disorder, it looks nice, but really, its not your friend, its your enemy. Thanks, georgia. What about you, claire . Which one have you gone for for the anorexic identity . A be, because it feels soft and cuddly, but it actually stings and hurts, and causes some damage to yourself. Thats something thats confusing about it, isnt it . Because it isntjust the enemy, it also feels like a friend to you, it feels like it is there for you, protecting you. Can i pause at that moment . Because that is a really interesting. The fact that you picked that, you say it is a friend and an enemy. Let me introduce you to everybody, thank you for having me in here by the way, mary, who is a therapist, claire, who is currently receiving outpatient treatment after her third time in hospital, georgia, currently getting this kind of outpatient treatment for the first time after twice being in hospital and anna, who was discharged from outpatient treatment last spring. You had Group Therapy sessions like this, anna, how did they help . They were hugely influential to my recovery, just being in a setting and an environment where everyone in the room understood why we were there, eating disorders can be very isolating and you think youre the only person going through it, but everyone in the group acknowledged thats why they were there, and having that supportive environment was so important. Are they tough, georgia . Is it tough to speak openly and honestly about what youre going through in front of other people . Definitely, i think theres a lot of shame attached to an eating disorder, you feel like its all your fault and no one else understands, but actually, when youre in a group and you have the courage to talk about what is going on and you realise that youre not alone, youre not the only person going through this, and it keeps you going forward, because you know that it is possible to get through. What about you, claire . Do they help you or is it hard . Its hard, but yeah, it does help, because you think youre the only one going through it, and you blame yourself, and there is a guilt, but you realise that we are not in it together, but whoever is going through it is going through it as well, so it helps understand and helps you to move forward. Mary, there are some people who are cynical about therapy, full stop, never mind Group Therapy. But this is evidence based, it does help people recover. Absolutely. So, this is a mantra group, and mantra is annualised therapy that comes from the wards, we have taken this off the page and made it interactive exercises that we can do each week. I think the thing with group that is different from individual therapy is that as the girls said, when you hear someone speak out loud the thoughts that you have in your head, you might realise it is part of the anorexic psychopathology, part of the anorexic thinking, and not your identity, it is not you that think that, it is the illness. You can do that in an individual session, but it is easier if they can hear each other say it and you can point out and say, has anyone else had that thought today . Is anyone else having that thought right now . And everyone starts to nod, they realise they are not on their own, in a different way than in individual therapy. Anna, when you are having treatment, and you are over a year now after being discharged, what kind of things do you have to relearn about eating . I think it is essentially going back to when you were a child and when youre younger, you have that intuition to know when youre full, when you need food, and none of that outside influence really get into your mindset. So i remember thinking even ten years ago, i loved food, i had a really healthy relationship with food, and my mum would make comments like, at least we never have to worry about you being anorexic, which is so ironic, because obviously, ten years later, im sat here today having been through this, and i think its really important, we obviously are given dieticians and its like relearning the things that seem so obvious, just about the amount you should be eating and taking away that guilt and feeling towards food. Its just about trusting that more than anything else, and knowing that actually, you do know the answer to these problems, you do know what your body needs, you do know what the right thing to do is in your life, and thenjust doing it. And dealing with it afterwards. Right. Claire, you have had inpatient treatment three times, at first aged 2a for eight months, the second aged 27 for five months, and the third, which i think ended last summer, was for six months. But this is the first time you have had this continuing support as an outpatient. How important has that been to stop you elapsing . I think it has been a big thing, yeah, i think that is where it has gone wrong in the past, they teach you the basics in the ward, but it is so different at home, so its learning to carry on and having this support is one of the best things i have had. There will be some people watching who wont understand why, when you go back home after being in hospital, you cantjust eat. Can you explain that, anna, georgia . I think its different, because what we believe is so different, we know when we need to eat and when people say, just eat, its not like that, and its frustrating for us, because deep down, we know to eat, but weve got Something Else inside us that is stopping us eating, if that makes sense. Yes, it does. Anna, how would you describe it . Its like you know what the right thing to do is, and you know that in order to get better and have the life that you deserve, that is the thing that is going to make you get to that point, but on top of that, there is the fear of what will happen, all of these irrational worries and fears about what will happen if you actually do that and what will this mean about your identity . You will be out of control and all of these other thoughts come into your head. I mean, the biggest part of my recovery was learning to ignore that, learning to trust my that feeling come in a way, the irony of that, but learning to listen to that voice, rather than the buzzing bee or the jail bars that were the other side of that. After going to that Group Therapy session, i met 23 year old roisin, who was diagnosed with anorexia when she was 16. She and her mum and dad, kevin and gabrielle, told us of how they struggled to get the help they needed to support their daughter. With them, Andrew Radford from the eating disorder charity, beat. Im doing all right at the moment, i think its a constant struggle and there is still a lot of work to be done, but i would say comparatively to where ive been, im in a better place. But a point id always like to get across is thatjust because youre better than where you work doesnt mean youre better completely, and its still a struggle for me. Could you describe for our audience what its like having an eating disorder . I mean, i could go on about that forever, it is a broad question, but i think the thing that i would say really is that it is all encompassing, so people may think that when you hear about an eating disorder, you think about somebody getting stressed out when sat at the dinner table or a someone offers you a piece of cake, but for me and for basically everyone else i know with an eating disorder, its all the time, it doesnt leave your head, you dont get respite, so one example i was thinking of is that ive just started a newjob down in oxford, working for the student union, and im going to lots of meetings and its great and i love myjob, but im going into the meeting and there will be a plate of sandwiches on the table, and everyone else willjust think its a plate of sandwiches. For me, my head will start going, do i have to eat one of these . Is this going to be expected of me . How many calories are in this . How does it fit into my meal plan . If i eat that now, what do i eat later . And its still a constant juggling act. And yeah, that is a big part of it, you dont get respite, an eating disorder doesnt take a day off, it doesnt think, you are doing Something Else now, so we will go away, it sits there on your shoulder and it continues tonight you and it is more recovery in my eyes, it is about being able to listen to that voice and go, shut up, im doing the opposite. Sure. Kevin, what was it like for you when you thought something wasnt right with roisin . What did you think was coming on . It was very difficult, i had no idea what was going on because whilst that was happening with roisin, and i found out through various different routes, but a phone call from her school was what really brought it into the immediacy, there is life going on as well, and it wasnt something that i understood or i had any experience of, even though ive spent my working life working with young people, and to be fair, it was something i thought, i dont understand this, this doesnt happen to us, what on earth are they talking about . This cant be true, and it is something i need to fix and put right as quickly as i can, because im roisins dad, and im there to fix things, and that was my initial confusion, was, right, this is a problem, how do i deal with it . On the issue with anorexia as there is no one way to fix it, and i didnt realise that at the start. And gabrielle, you actually recognised roisins difficulties, if i can put it like that, before medical professionals did. What did you see . You were officially diagnosed at 16, but you noticed some signs at 12 . Well, even, actually, i was thinking, at 11 years old, when she was in her year six at primary school, was the first time i was aware that roisin had difficulties. It started where they were weighing children, you know, in year six, it was brought in that they were weighing children and talking about their bmi and everything. And roisin at that time was very sporty, she was on every team imaginable, she just loved her sport, but there was also, she picked up from the television, that people who did the sport could actually have a higher bmi, because of their muscle and everything, and she calculated all this in her head and she was hysterical at home, saying, i dont want to be weighed, i dont want to go into school and i dont want to be weighed, and i actually went into school and said, i dont want to you to weigh her, she has really upset about this. That was the first time. And that would be an unusual behaviour from an 11 year old. Yes, it was like. Do you remember this . I remember this happening, and i can remember, to be honest, even earlier than that, this kind of fixation with being ok, and i think the school side of things is a really important thing, because for me, im a perfectionist and academically, academia is like my love and ive loved skill, and by weighing children in school and bringing this whole idea of, you can be right, i saw fitting a bmi from that age as, this is how i get my a. I need to be the a grade of weight. And i was so frightened to be weighed, and i can vividly remember just how scared i was of being weighed and being told, youre not right, youre not in the top set, because that had never happened to me. And it kind of played on that perfectionist tendencies, and it continued play on that throughout my life, until very recently with a bit of a breakthrough in therapy. Kevin, was there a point, i mean, youve already expended on about eating disorders, you just think, you look it up and then you sort it. Were there points where you felt futile . Where you said to your daughter, just eat some food . Definitely. I think theres an element of that that is my character, you know, which is, we are going to sort this and get through it. Right, what is the problem . Lets find a way of dealing with this. But also, we did get some conflicting advice in the early stages of us dealing with the disorder, and part of that advice, to me, was to take her on, youve got to challenge these behaviours, and it was actually completely the wrong thing for me to be doing, but at the time, it felt to be the right thing. And so, for me, the answer was obvious, but when in fact, the answer is far from obvious, and far from straightforward, and if i could go back to those days and offer myself some advice, it would be, its not your fault, and you cant fix it overnight. Im going to bring in andrew at this point, Andrew Radford, chief executive of beat. Now, there is guidance, there are nice guidelines into how families of people with eating disorders should be supported. You say they are not being properly followed. What is going wrong, do you say . We have done some research, and what it does is shows that the stories of despair and helplessness that we have just heard are being felt by hundreds, thousands of parents and carers across the country, and there is that really common theme of helplessness, but also, a real determination and drive to do something about it. Meanwhile, the nice guidelines say that eating Disorders Services should be engaging parents, but the parents themselves are saying, that is not happening. Beat will talk to maybe 30,000 people this year, and that is a really common theme. And why is it not happening, do you say . I think it is the system that is at fault. Eating disorders professionals are amazing and they want to do the right thing by their patients, but they dont have the time, the resources and the tools to do it effectively. Parents of people with eating disorders are amazing, they have to go through hell and yet, they come out determined to do something right by their loved one. If you can corral that energy and determination to Work Together between the service and the parents, to help the young person, that young person will get better faster, they will stay better longer, and it will save nhs resources to help more people. So, what we are doing is issuing guidance to say, this is how you do it, we will help, lets do it together. I want to briefly, just in the last couple of minutes that we have, talk about the fact that when you were at university, it was recommended that you should be admitted to hospital, but the only bed. You were at university in oxford, the only bed that can be found for you was in edinburgh. Obviously, a very long way away from university and from home, which is in yorkshire, so your mum rang beat, they gave you a list of inpatient services, and you got your gp to literally ring round, is that right, to find a bed . We knew that roisin knew more about this than me, but we did, we were all ringing round, we were all looking at different options, and then, we were told that we had to get a referral, we can do it as parents, she had to go through the gp system, but then of course, when we got to gp level, i think it was leeds that at that point had a bed, and we went over and i think it was a six week waiting list, was it, roisin . Yeah, this was in march we went over, i had been sent home from university, told i was going to be an impatient, made peace with this fact, and then got told, oh, weve got a bed, you can have it, yes, but its in may. And that was just, i spiralled. I actually ended up, probably in the place i came home was the place i went back to university, because that waiting period just left me alone tojust spiral. Yeah, i remember making a list of all the services in the country and e mailing and ringing them all, because i didnt have a key worker at a time, because this service hadnt started in halifax. So, the gp, who had never dealt with anything like it, was just having to ring round. I remember coming out of a gp appointment in tears, because she said she had found me a bed, and i was just that desperate for something to help me. Finally, i sat down with a group of patients at the service, plus professionals and others who have been treated for eating disorders, to find out what more they think could be done to help treat and support those affected. I started to withdraw and started to eat less at the age of ten, and my mum and dad very quickly picked up on the warning signs. They took me to the gp, who said i wasnt low enough in weight to have a problem, it will be fine, its just a phase. Long story short, two years later, i was admitted to a childrens psychiatric unit and given 2a hours to live, if i didnt eat or drink. I think one of the biggest things that im hoping this programme will do is highlight that Early Intervention is key. The longer we wait to treat somebody with an eating disorder, the more of a hold it has on that person. Waiting for the weight to change does not change what is already there. Is that true, danielle . The longer somebody has an eating disorder before they are treated, the longer they will take to recover . Absolutely. As with most disorders, you know, the earlier you get in there, the better the outcomes. We set up freed, an Early Intervention service for eating disorders, and it was quite surprising, actually, it was like, why have we never done this before . So, we found that actually, if we can get in there early, if people come to treatment early, and we can provide a service that is friendly and open and warm, and i can come and get evidence based treatment, that they will go on to live their lives a lot quicker. We cant dictate to people their treatment, by their bmi, their blood results, there are sugar levels, by everything else. My daughter, very sadly, was mismanaged from her first diagnosis at 18. She was ill before that and unfortunately, we werent able to access cams, which was through no fault of the gp, it was the Mental Health team. She languished on a medical ward for many months before she was moved to an eating disorder unit. She was then thrust into a secure unit, which is a toxic environment at best, damaging, very damaging, and that was the progress and 11 years later, my daughter lost her life. She lost her life not because of the care she received at the end, but of the failing of the treatment at the beginning. So, kayleigh was an amazing, intelligent, erudite, beautiful, caring young lady, who was let down by a service. But again, and i totally agree with gemma here. Dont, because youll start me off. I totally agree with gemma here that the service and the move forwards that is being made by the psychiatrists in the treatment of this illness are what is going to save the lives of our children. And thank you. You know, for most people, it is absolutely unimaginable what kayleigh, your daughter, went through, what you went through. Can you describe what it is like to lose your daughter . Effectively, her organs shut down as a result of the eating disorder. What can i say . It is the biggest fear, it is the most painful thing you will ever experience, it is the greatest loss, and there is a huge hole in my heart. I manage to get through each day by having a mission. My mission is my cic, which is kays trust, so that i can bring to the area i come from, which is the isle of wight, a group, and gemma is going to help me as well, for parents, carers and friends. Because there are so many isolated pockets in this country that dont provide any support. If your daughter is taken, as mine was, to another part of the country to be treated, you cant afford to travel there. And if you can, you cannot get there between six and seven when the parents meeting is. So you are cast adrift, and you look to charities and beat, and other websites to try and find the help and support that you need, and it doesnt exist where you need it. You need this, you need a hold, you need the warmth of another human being beside you. My life will never be the same, but i have a mission, and my mission is to save at least one person, and that is what i will do. I wonder if i can ask you all more about the reasons why people develop eating disorders, because there are many and complex, it is never down to one particular reason for one reason alone. What would you say, gemma, if you even know . Yeah, no, ive been through years of therapy now, so i get it. Mine stemmed from bullying, and also being a high achiever, and i felt like i was living these two different lives, where i was pushed up and constantly pulled down, and ifelt like i had no control over what people said or did to me. But i could control something. But also, the other side of it was my anorexia developed when i was going through puberty, and obviously, when i started to lose weight, in my head, i had lost my breasts, my period, my hips, i became a little girl that i thought in my head was happy. But its ultimately about control and this perception of it being, as we touched on at the start of the programme, vanity. I didnt read a magazine and see a supermodel and decide, i want to look like her. Ive said it before, i used to read comics, and i definitely didnt want to look like beano. So its something that is there, needs treated, as a person and an individual, and notjust so many girls and boys out there who are treated as an eating disorder. We are still a person. Of course. Does social media come into it . And how much so . I would say, for myself anyway, im 26, i didnt really have social media growing up, but i have seen more and more in my work as an ambassador for beat, that things like instagram and snapchat and facebook are portraying these images of people that are just photoshopped and face tuned and so on and so forth, and it is creating this ridiculous standard of perception, how young people in particular think, i should look like that. Do you think the link is as simple as that . That would then potentially lead someone to restrict what they eat . I dont think its ever quite as simple as that. There is something already there, isnt there . There is always something there. For myself, anyway, i come from a very traumatic background, and that is why i developed an eating disorder. Growing up, i had magazines, and i didnt look at a magazine and suddenly think, 0k, i want to look like this person, it was always about the control for me. Can ijust say that from a parents point of view, as well, you think as a parent, you can do anything, youre there, you can work magic, and you cant. I wanted somebody to come along and fix my daughter, i knew she had a problem and was seriously ill, and i desperately wanted somebody to help me, and every time i put my trust in somebody, that trust was let down, not just for me, but for my daughter as well. So for parents, i would say, seek support for yourself, because, and i know this is true of gemmas mother as well, it affects you. I have developed fibromyalgia, as has gemmas mother, and it is because of the trauma and shock that you go through. And also because as a mother, i always say to people, as a mother, the first thing you ever do for your child is you feed it, you clothe it and you closet it. What anorexia does is it strips that away from you, you lose that right as a parent to look after your child in the way that you always naturally do. So, parents need to look after themselves and seek help and support for themselves as well. Thanks to everybody who took part in our special broadcast from halifax. It was a tv first, live from an adult eating disorder service. If you want more information, it is bbc. Co. Uk actionline. If you want to watch the whole programme, then just go to the iplayer, it is all there for you. Thanks for watching. Pleasa nt pleasant enough day out there for most of us, if you have had a little bit of rainfall that you are not expecting, youre in the minority, the showers are mostly isolated across northern and eastern parts of the country, and tomorrow, there could be one or two a little bit further south as well. High pressure is over us, but it is not a clear high, you can see a fair bit of cloud across the uk, so not exactly sunny cloud across the uk, so not exactly sunny across cloud across the uk, so not exactly sunny across the british isles, but we have got some sunny spells. This afternoon, temperatures probably ending at around 23 21id. 20 in the lowla nds ending at around 23 21id. 20 in the lowlands of scotland, if you squint, you can see the showers across yorkshire this evening, and one or two showers heading in the direction of east anglia and the south east. Some spots overnight, but the vast majority of the country will be dry with clear spells. 15 in london the overnight low, ten in belfast. The highs with us tomorrow, you can see this patch of blue, possibly one or two showers in the morning on sunday, across east anglia and the south east, but they will not last for very long, then we will do it all over again, another day of summer all over again, another day of summer time clouds, some of us will have some decent spells of sunshine, but for others, it may be a bit cloudy, particularly across some of these northern and eastern areas. Respectable temperatures, 22 24d, even 22 expected in the lowlands of scotland. How about the cricket world cup . The weather is looking absolutely fine, might start off cloudy in the morning, but by the afternoon, the cloud will break up and allow for some sunny spells. Sundays weather forecast, the weather still looking decent, low pressure out there, it is heading in oui pressure out there, it is heading in our direction, but as far as monday and tuesday is concerned, the weather is looking fine, there will bea weather is looking fine, there will be a lot of dry weather. Beyond that, from tuesday evening, we will start to see the wind and rain picking up across some western parts of the uk, then the weather will go downhill somewhat for the rest of the week. Talking about weather going downhill, certainly going downhill across the deep south of the usa, this is the satellite image, and the storm at barry, into the coastline, the land for his in the coastline, the land for his in the process, taking place right now. Over the next few days, a tremendous amount of rainfall causing flooding across this part of the world. This is bbc news, im chris rogers. The headlines at five. The metropolitan police re iterate that publishing leaked diplomatic telegrams could be a criminal offence. The warning follows the resignation of the British Ambassador in washington. The police have been criticised for threatening prosecutions of the media over the leak. It cannot conceivably be right that newspapers or any other Media Organisation publishing such material should face prosecution. The floodgates have been closed in new orleans in preparation for hurricane barry. Surges and heavy rain are expected later. Simona halep wins her first wimbledon title