Status of Women Committee on Feb. 12th, 2014

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Ashton, you have seven minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much, and I'll be splitting my time with my colleague, Madam Sellah.

Thank you very much both to Ms. Anderson and Ms. Martin for joining us today and for sharing your experience and your wisdom on this very important issue.

Ms. Anderson, I want to begin with you. This committee has learned that there is systemic discrimination in our health care system against those suffering from eating disorders. We learn from people like Dr. Blake Woodside that there are often only 10 beds and a six-month waiting list at Toronto General Hospital for eating disorder patients, and you alluded to the waiting list as well.

I'm wondering if you could speak to the systemic nature of the problems you encounter, which is often an element in this discussion that gets missed.

[Joanna Anderson]

Absolutely. I think that this is a committee that's being commissioned to talk about women and girls. Eating disorders do affect boys as well, but while we're talking about women and girls, it's been understood that this is an illness of affluent, vain girls, and to understand that it is a severe mental illness is one issue.

I'll tell you a story about one of my clients. She was having chest pain, and I was very nervous for her, and I accompanied her to emergency. I did that because I knew that she was going to be treated terribly in the emergency department. When I mentioned to the ER doctor that she had been a client of mine at SickKids and that she had been struggling with an eating disorder for many years, he said to tell her the waiting list was six months long, and then proceeded to not really treat her with the same kind of respect or care that you would get if you were just having chest pain and someone didn't know that you had an eating disorder.

So I think our clients are discriminated against on the understanding that this is something that people do to themselves, that it's a bad choice that they make, whereas what we're trying to educate the committee and the public about is that this is a mental illness that is very based in genetic and biological functions.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much.

I have just one quick follow-up question so that I can leave time for my colleague as well.

Obviously you acknowledged that boys and men struggle with eating disorders as well, but if we bring the focus back to women, I'm wondering if in your work you see women having child care issues and financial issues when they come to seek help.

[Joanna Anderson]

I think this is a way that women experience eating disorders differently from men. For sure, if you are an adult women and you have to go to treatment, as Dr. Woodside said, treatment can last nine months to a year to do it properly. What are you supposed to do with your children during that time? Who's going to take care of them? Where is the social and economic support to be able to leave a job or school and go for treatment?

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Niki.

I would like to thank the witnesses who are here today for helping us understand more about eating disorders.

I would like to start by saying that, as a health professional, I know a little about eating disorders. However, I would like to call on your experience, Ms. Martin, by asking the following question.

I know that, most of the time, eating disorders result from an imbalance or a relationship between the body and food, but that is not the only factor. As we know, it's fairly complex.

In your field, what do you see as the biggest factor at the root of eating disorders?

[Noelle Martin]

That's a very good question. I do think that everyone is different, I really do. If I had to pick one piece I would say it has to be the attitudes and beliefs of society that are then taken and put forward generation after generation.

I think if we take the genetic piece and the biological piece, we all know that genes can be expressed or not expressed, depending on situational factors such as environment and social...and depending on which type of gene we're looking at. So I think if we change our attitudes and beliefs in our culture around many things, we can help with many mental illnesses, including eating disorders.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you for your answer.

Do I have any time left, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Yes, you have almost two minutes.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Good.

Setting aside the media and social pressure you just mentioned, what can the federal government do to minimize these disorders?

[Noelle Martin]

I think it's anywhere that funding could be given from the federal level in helping those who have eating disorders. In terms of medical...my understanding is that it's more provincial funding. But if there are ways in which federal funding could be offered to places that are maybe even outside of clinical settings, such as Hope's Garden or Sheena's Place, and other places like that across Canada, that would be of huge assistance.

I know at Hope's Garden—and I'm sure Sheena's Place is the same—we relied on volunteers and funding from within our community to help those who were dealing with an eating disorder. I think any funding that can be given then allows places such as Hope's Garden or Sheena's Place to help those within the community and also to provide campaigns for awareness.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Anderson, do you have anything to add?

[Joanna Anderson]

I'd like to echo what Ms. Martin said. Also, I think one thing that's very important is a national public awareness campaign to help people understand that eating disorders are a severe mental illness that has very high mortality rates, and to understand that this is not just young girls being vain and diets gone bad. We need to educate people around what it is that eating disorders are. I think that would help tie into what Ms. Martin was saying about changing societal attitudes.

We also need research money.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Ms. O'Neill Gordon, you have seven minutes.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you both for being with us this afternoon. We certainly appreciate your time and the fact that you are sharing your experiences with us.

You both mentioned people like parents, teachers, coaches, social workers, and all of us certainly know what an important role these people play in individual lives. I'm wondering, what advice and means of help you would like to see these people receive. Better still, how would you propose to get these messages instilled into the minds and hearts of these important mentors and great friends who are always part of these individuals' lives?

[Noelle Martin]

I think one thing that comes to mind in terms of coaches is really helping a coach understand how every single word that comes out of their mouth is very influential in the way that the person who is on their team, or is working towards a goal with them.... Every single word matters.

For example, I have a client who had the potential for an incredible gymnastics career and because of how hard her coach was on her for the way her body looked, she made nutritional choices where she was not given advice from a nutritionist or a dietitian who was of access to the team. She ended up in hospital at the age of nine, and through the age of nine to 19, she was in and out of hospital, had hip fractures, and a lot of negative medical consequences, because of a few phrases early on.

That's just one of many examples, and I think that coaches and teachers need to understand that they either need the proper education before they give advice or to pull in a dietitian or a medical professional who can speak with the team and use the appropriate language so we aren't pushing someone towards an eating disorder or disordered eating, such as Ms. Anderson described when the individual went into that 13-year-old boy's class.

[Joanna Anderson]

I think the thing that I find so alarming about this is we at Sheena's Place will go to one school, one coach. Our program manager went to Elizabeth Fry yesterday because they have a woman in prison who is coming out and they don't know how to help her. She has a severe eating disorder.

But that takes a lot of time and resources. We don't have a national campaign to educate people, so Ms. Martin is doing this work, and Dr. Pinhas and Dr. Woodside, whom you've already spoken to.

We're all doing the best we can in our communities, but those are individual approaches and I think we need a national campaign because you can't educate coaches and families and teachers one by one.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Absolutely, and all of the work that they do they do with good intentions so little would they know that they're saying anything wrong. So they really need to be told and shown because so few people out there are really aware of this disorder and what it really means to the parents and to the patient as well.

I was aware of it, but it's not until we heard presentations from people like you and the other ones that we've had that I began to realize what a serious matter this really is among these young girls.

Among professionals in the field of eating disorders, is there a sufficient sharing of the knowledge and the research data and promising practices out there? What could be done to increase knowledge and sharing so that more people would be aware of these things?

Both of you.

[Noelle Martin]

Go ahead.

[Joanna Anderson]

I think that there's not, to answer your question quite frankly. Those of us in the field do our best to collaborate and share knowledge.

But conferences are very expensive, conducting research is very expensive. I came to Sheena's Place in 2012 and for the first time we are collecting data on clients and around the illness. When I got there a year and a half ago, no one could tell me who had anorexia and who had bulimia because there just wasn't the money to hire staff to do that kind of data collection.

So it's piecemeal at best.

[Noelle Martin]

For myself, I am part.... Sorry, go ahead.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

No, I was just asking if you had something to offer.