Our Foundation

Mission

A CHANCE TO HEAL empowers youth and their influencers to prevent the incidence of eating disorders.

History

ACTH was founded by a mother and daughter team in 2005 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to advancing the awareness of eating disorders (ED) and providing financial scholarships for individuals undergoing treatment. This commitment came from the reality that everyone knew someone with an eating disorder, and the following statistics could not be ignored:

• Approximately 19 million American women suffer from eating disorders[i]
• 75% of American women participate in unhealthy thoughts or behaviors around diet and exercise and struggle with negative body image[ii]
• 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner, and 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat[iii]
• 80% of girls in grades 3 – 6 have bad feelings about their bodies[iv]
• The average age of eating disorders onset has dropped from 13-17 to 9-12[v]
• Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness[vi]

While highly successful in its awareness promotion and fundraising efforts, the leadership at ACTH recognized its potential for significant impact lay in a mission and model dedicated to prevention. As such, the direction was changed. With the decision to focus awareness and programming on the prevention of eating disorders, ACTH leadership realized that to be most effective they would need to collaborate with the top experts in the field. To accomplish this, a Professional Advisory Council (PAC) was formed in 2008, which consists of national experts in eating disorder prevention, public health and medical economies.

Since 2008, ACTH has delivered prevention programming to more than 3,500 girls and their influencers, (coaches, teachers and others who play a role in influencing the lives of today’s young women.) Today all programs are led by trained and professional education and mental health experts, and are supported by a program director.