Eating Disorders Awareness week is from February 26th to March 3rd. Something you may not know, is that eating disorders affect people of every age, race, size, gender identity, sexual orientation and background and about 28.8 million Americans will experience an eating disorder in their lifetime.  Eating Disorders have the highest mortality rate of any other psychiatric illness (aside from the recent increase of opioid related deaths).

Lending her expertise in this field is Rebekah Bardwell Doweyko, who has over 20 years of clinical experience with eating disorders. Rebekah is the Assistant Vice President of Clinical Operations, Ambulatory Services, at Walden Behavioral Care in Middletown CT.  She earned her Master's degree in mental health counseling and is a licensed professional counselor in CT and other states, and she is a certified eating disorder specialist.  Rebekah says that eating disorders are complex, and for some people social media can be difficult to manage in treatment. "Social media is an avid partner in contributing to the power of diet culture and weight stigma.  We encourage our clients to discontinue, pause, or edit whom they follow on social media in order to limit the images, stories and/or reels that can be activating for their eating disorder. We have a group called "Eating Disorders in the Media", that focuses on teaching our folks how to develop a "fact checking" lens for social media use."  Rebekah also says that CT Paid Leave a lifesaver, because it is instrumental in getting people into lifesaving treatment. Rebekah has worked with several patients and caregivers who have used the CT Paid Leave program. She feels it is a lifesaver as it gives patients and their families the time to engage in proper treatment, without worrying about lost income.


For information on Walden Behavioral Care in Middletown CT: Eating Disorder Treatment Programs | Walden (waldeneatingdisorders.com)
Walden phone # (888) 228-1253.

Admissions email address is Admissions@WaldenBehavioralCare.com

For Rebekah Doweyko:  rdoweyko@waldenbehavioralcare.com

For information or benefits go to: CT Paid Leave

https://ctpaidleave.org/s/?language=en_US



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