Public Anorexia at YMCA

Gyms are in a position to spot eating disorders — but actually helping is tricky

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/gyms-are-in-a-position-to-spot-eating-disorders--but-actually-helping-is-tricky/2017/05/26/df57725a-3b50-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

Lauryn Lax said if several members of the YMCA in Nashville had not approached her in 2014, she might be dead today. Lax, who had struggled since she was 10 with an eating disorder, weighed 79 pounds in 2014 and was working out up to eight hours a day, going to one of several gyms where she had memberships.

“I call them my YMCA angels,” Lax said in a telephone interview. “They said they were worried about me and they wanted to take me to the hospital.”

Lax went to the hospital and started her long road to recovery. She now is a doctor of occupational therapy and a nutritional therapy practitioner in Texas.

Lax said the only time she was approached out of concern for her health while at a gym was at the YMCA by other members.

“Fitness instructors would talk to me in a way that did not address my problem outright,” she said. “They would see me at the gym all the time and some would say ‘Oh, back again?’ in a backhanded way. That’s why I had several gym memberships.”

“That only accelerated my eating disorder even more because I wanted to cling to the exercise even more,” Lax said. “Education is the key for trainers so they know how to handle clients with eating disorders and recognize the signs. I would have rather have been shown some love and concern than ignored.”