Author tackles issue of eating disorders

She and her friends would nearly starve themselves through bingeing and vomiting. Classmates at a performing-arts school, they strived incessantly for an ideal body weight.

Only it kept getting more elusive.

Eating disorders warp the way sufferers’ view the world, others and themselves, says Weiner, the author of “A Very Hungry Girl” and “Life Doesn’t Begin 5 Pounds From Now.”

As a teen, she said: “I suffered in silence with my eating disorder. I felt ashamed. I felt like it was all in my mind. I was consumed every second of the day with what I was eating.”

At 12, Weiner began trying to lose weight by alternating between eating and getting sick.

Therapy helped, and in 1995, Weiner created ACT Out, a national theater company performing pieces that dealt with body image and violence against women.

“Eating disorders are a legitimate mental health issue,” Weiner said.

Weiner is to speak Sunday at Sheppard Pratt Health System.

“We want to light a fire and inspire hope in people with eating disorders,” said Sarah Blake, social worker and outreach coordinator for the Pratt’s Center for Eating Disorders.

More than 11 million Americans suffer from an eating disorder, experts say, and as many as 1 million of those are men. Eating disorders can lead to kidney failure, abnormally low heart rate, anemia and other illnesses.

Many cases of eating disorders are never reported because of the stigma and the common misconception that the disorders aren’t mental illnesses, Weiner said.

If you go

» What: Jess Weiner at Sheppard Pratt Health System

» When: 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday

» Where: The Conference Center at Sheppard Pratt, 6501 N. Charles St.

» Registration: Pre-registration requested. Call 410-938-3157

mcedrone@baltimoreexaminer.com