About 5% of the Israeli population, some 400,000 people, suffer from various eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and others.
Sudden changes in mood, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are prevalent among eating disorder patients.
For this reason, mental health experts often work together with other medical experts to support their patients' recovery.
However, as explained by Prof. Yael Letzer, who founded the Center for Eating Disorders at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, there simply aren't enough treatment centers. "Despite the fact that the number of treatment centers has grown in the past decade or so, many [people] are still waiting in line. Also, the number of treatment centers in the periphery is extremely low."
This is partially the reason why Enosh recently launched the new information center, tasked with providing all the pertinent information about day hospitals, treatment centers and hospices.
"Not many are familiar with the help there are entitled to get by law, according to their condition. For this reason, we launched this new center," explained Enosh CEO Dr. Hela Hadas.
The troubling numbers additionally show that among 3,700 randomly selected participants, 5.3% reported that at least one of their children suffers from an eating disorder.
About a third of the participants said they spend between NIS 1,000 to NIS 2,000 a month on treatments for their afflicted children.
As the numbers of those suffering from eating disorders continue to rise, the new Enosh center is one small step in the right direction.