By Maiken Scott

By Pat Hartman

A Chance to Heal is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation that originated in the mind of Rachel Silver. As a 17-year-old, Silver needed help to treat her eating disorder, and her position in life was such that money was no object. But not everyone is in such a comfortable situation. While undergoing her own treatment, Rachel had the extraordinarily open-hearted experience of realizing this inequality of opportunity. The foundation’s website explains the problem:

Health insurance over the last twenty years has drastically reduced the average stay for inpatient eating disorder treatment from the optimum of 7-10 weeks to as few as one week of inpatient care. Once inpatient care is terminated, outpatient care must take over. Recovery on an outpatient basis, however, requires frequent, consistent sessions with a psychotherapist and, ideally, with an entire therapeutic team including a Nutritionist, Psychiatrist, and Physician. Slowing treatment down due to lack of funds is likely to compromise the recovery progress and promote the disease process.

The young woman learned that at any given time, millions of Americans are in the midst of dealing with some kind of eating disorder, and a lot of them are kids. With the help of her mother, Ivy Silver, Rachel decided to do something to reduce the damage done by eating disorders. Here is a statistical item that has perhaps not been phrased so clearly before: More people die from eating disorders than from all other mental health conditions combined. Chew on that for a while.

If people are going to get better, they need early diagnosis, full treatment, emotional and logistical support from the family, and additional relationships with friends and therapists. And generally, they need a whole lot of money, or a remarkable insurance carrier. These days, it’s fairly unusual to even have insurance at all, let alone the type that will pay for a minor child’s inpatient treatment for something like food addiction, and extensive aftercare. The foundation wants to help eliminate barriers to treatment, of which the discrimination of health insurance coverage is a prominent example.

The foundation cares about all eating disorders, “from anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder to body dysmorphia,” and wants to prevent them whenever possible. One of its methods is education. A Chance to Heal puts together programs for schools, businesses, community centers, and even homes. The organization has particular expertise in addressing three specific target audiences: students in middle school and high school; adults and families; and the health care community. In other words, the foundation’s programs are the best kind of real-life continuing education for professionals.

A large event is coming up, and please note that if it sounds good, the registration deadline is April 1. The Public Health Symposium presented by A Chance to Heal will be held on April 15, and its focus is the intersection of eating disorder prevention and public health. The symposium welcomes people from state and city health departments, and anyone working in the area of nutrition and wellness, or mental health, especially if adolescents are involved. This is an opportunity for educators, researchers, thought leaders, and policymakers to figure out some weighty matters, and to basically advance the public health agenda for eating disorder prevention.

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By Meg Kelly

Obesity is on the rise. So are eating disorders. Many parents worry that talking to their children about a healthier diet, could cause them to adversely change their eating behaviors or stop eating all together. To help them communicate with their kids on this subject, Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation reached out to experts in the field. All gave valuable guidance, but A Chance to Heal, impressed Lisa Gable, Executive Director of HWCF, with their range of knowledge about eating disorders. “They have a story,” says Ms. Gable, “That we wanted to share.”

Ivy Silver had tried promises, pleas, tears and threats to break the grip an eating disorder had on her daughter Rachel. When none of them worked, she put her daughter into treatment. Treatment freed Rachel from a dangerous disorder and taught her freedom, does indeed, come at a price.

“When Rachel was in treatment, she saw patients come and go before they were ready because of cost,” says Carolyn Rammel, Executive Director of A Chance to Heal.

Grateful her treatment hadn’t been interrupted, Rachel talked to her mother about finding a way to help others when the money ran out.

“Ivy was immediately supportive. She worked for years in health care benefits and knew what was needed to make Rachel’s idea happen.”

Rachel and Ivy had a plan, enlisted doctors and experts, but Rachel named their organization alone.

“She knew first-hand that treatment was a chance to heal.”

Launched in 2005, A Chance to Heal helped many people continue treatment. However, as the number of people with eating disorders continued to rise, Rachel, Ivy and the leadership team found themselves questioning the organization’s original mission.

“Eight to ten million women suffer from anorexia or bulimia,” says Carolyn. “In the past, these disorders typically affected women. Now we’re seeing it also affect men, with the numbers on the rise.”

In 2008, after significant research and soul searching the leadership shifted the focus from treatment to prevention. “If we can help prevent the disorder from happening at all, we can be even more effective in helping to save young lives,” said Ivy.

“A Chance to Heal now goes into communities and teaches prevention to parents, coaches and teachers – the people who influence how a child feels about themselves. We have a twelve member council who guide us in our work, and we offer three programs on an on-going basis. Each one has been tested and proven to be effective.”

The first, Parent Talk, is an informal conversation with parents who have kids of a similar age. “We give the parents an opportunity to talk about this scary thing and ask questions: what do you say to the child who is trying to lose weight? What do you say to the child who is overweight? We talk about parents as role models. Is asking your daughter if your jeans make you look fat a good idea? The people who lead these discussions are trained professionals who work with families and children with eating disorders. They explain the importance of family dinners, turning off the TV, and talking to each other. Preparing a meal and eating it together is one of the best ways to teach kids how to have a healthy relationship with food.

The second program, Body Talk, is a once-a-year workshop offered to influencers: coaches, teachers, religious, and community leaders. “We talk about things like warning signs,” explains Carolyn. “We bring in a speaker to let these mentors ask questions and help them understand how powerful their influence is. We also correct a common misperception that eating disorders only happen to wealthy, white girls. Anorexia and binge-eating are similar across Latinos, African Americans and non-Latino whites. Bulimia hits Latino and African Americans more than non-Latino whites. Eating disorders belong to everyone.”

Carolyn feels the third program, The Body Project, is where A Chance to Heal’s impact is felt the most. “We go into the schools and work with groups of 10 to 12 girls for one hour, for four consecutive weeks. We do a series of exercises, such as asking them to describe their role models or pull pictures of happy people out of magazines. They realize the role model’s weight never crossed their mind and the happy people weren’t necessarily skinny, they get it. We don’t convince the girls. They convince themselves.”

Produced by A Chance to Heal for The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation

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“Eat, eat, eat.” How many times have we each heard this from mom as we sit down to dinner? We all know that in the Jewish culture there is a big emphasis on food, yet the same mother who spends a week preparing for Shabbat dinner, may be the one who tells her daughter she needs to lose a few pounds. The story of the Jewish American woman’s relationship to food, body and hunger itself reads like a classic. Like all cultures within a culture, Jewish American women must find ways to accept, reject or just plain make peace with two frequently competing value systems.

Heidi Dalzell

May 31, 2010
Montgomery County resident Rachel Silver is a remarkable young woman. While struggling with, and eventually healing from, her eating disorder, Rachel developed a recovery mission: to help heal eating disorders through prevention and advocacy. Enlisting the aid of her mother, Ivy Silver, the two founded A Chance to Heal Foundation based in Jenkintown, Pa.

The foundation celebrated its 5-year anniversary in May. Throughout the 5 years the foundation has enhanced its mission: providing programs to the community that focus on the prevention of eating disorders. “Our programs are aimed at parents, children, and influencers — those that could affect an eating disorder, such as teachers and coaches,” says Carolyn Rammel, the foundation’s executive director. The foundation’s programs are evidence-based, meaning that they have been proven through research and are offered free of charge. A Chance to Heal also sponsors special events, such as its upcoming triathlon, which celebrates the power and joy of our bodies while embracing the importance of body image, productivity and energy.” Past events have focused on body diversity and have included speakers such as plus-size supermodel Emme.

Professionals can find a number of training programs on their website, and also attend programs sponsored by area hospitals and organizations. There are also parent and teacher resources and information on eating disorder support groups.

Another key endeavor concerns eating disorders advocacy. The foundation is working with Senator Daylin Leach on Pa. Bill 1138, which extends insurance coverage for the treatment of eating disorders. Eating disorders are not currently considered a parity diagnosis, and coverage for services varies greatly from plan to plan. Leach would like to expand this coverage and provide coverage that allows those impacted by eating disorders to have necessary treatment in order to heal.

Continue reading on Examiner.com A chance to heal: preventing eating disorders – Philadelphia eating disorder | Examiner.

Philadelphia University was honored May 8 by A Chance to Heal for sponsoring last fall’s Body Diversity fashion show and for promoting innovations in fashion education and industry standards.