Status of Women committee  Yes. We have approximately 40,000 to 41,000 psychiatrists in Canada in total. Based on anecdotally looking at our colleagues across Canada, we have approximately 12 psychiatrists who work in the area of eating disorders. That is split between those who specialize in adult eating disorders versus those who specialize in child and adolescent eating disorders.

Status of Women committee  The one comment I would like to make to support the comments that Merryl Bear at NEDIC made is that certainly in my area, as a person who specializes in prevention research, toward the early and mid part of my career, I had funding from women's...[Inaudible--Editor]...funding agencies.

Status of Women committee  I'd like to add a comment, please. One way to look at it is that often in severe cases of eating disorder, medical stabilization and psychiatric stabilization are warranted. We very much rely on our colleagues working in tertiary care hospitals to deliver that expert care, but all too often, with the limited funding and resources that we have, there are very few dollars left over to help people with that.

Status of Women committee  This is across Canada. I've reached out to stakeholders from each province, some of the provinces that reach out to territories, as well as three of our federal agencies. The goal here was to be strategic. We wanted to try to bridge the field of eating disorders, so we reached out to people from these areas who specialized in the prevention of eating disorders.

Status of Women committee  One of the things I did when I brought everybody together was share with them a background paper that I put together, which I would be very happy to share with the committee. It looked at research literature supporting why it is we would like to integrate both of these approaches up until a certain age group.

Status of Women committee  This started off with a CIHR planning and dissemination grant that I received in the amount of $20,000. It was a two-day in-person meeting that we hosted in 2011. It was met with such success that the participants requested that I continue to chair these meetings. Usually once every two months is what we've been doing up until now.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much for the invitation to speak. I am speaking on behalf of two of my roles. One is as a senior associate scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children, where I've carried out a 17-year program of research in the prevention of eating disorders. The other is as a psychologist and director of a provincial training program in the treatment of eating disorders that is funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in Ontario.