In her latest challenge Tracey Jeanne ran a total of 48 miles – four miles every four hours over a 48-hour period – to help mark Eating Disorders Week next week.
As a committee member of the support group, Mrs Jeanne has particular reason to be aware of the help that it provides to families within the Island. She had an eating disorder in her teens and early 20s, something which she found difficult to understand at the time.
‘Having been brought up in the most loving, caring family I could ever have wished for, it just didn’t make sense. I had bullying issues at school and lacked friends but had one best friend from whom I was inseparable. She then left to attend a different school. This devastated me and because I had extremely low self-esteem, it could have been an underlying cause. I guess I’ll never know,’ she said.
Later, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 32, she worried that her eating disorder might have been a contributory factor in contracting the disease, and then had to deal with the side-effects of treatment.
‘It really made me look at my body at the very worst it could look and made me ashamed of how I had hated it in my younger days. The guilt I felt was overwhelming,’ she said.
However, she is now committed to helping support others who may be experiencing similar feelings of confusion when faced themselves – or through family members – with dealing with an eating disorder.
Mrs Jeanne added: ‘The realisation dawned on me that I needed to do something positive, not only to boost my own self-esteem and do something to really benefit the groups around me who helped me the most during these turbulent years, but to prove to myself that my body is still capable of doing amazing things even though I put it through so much.’
Mrs Jeanne is inviting Islanders who are affected by an eating disorder who want help or support to visit the group’s website, www.jeds.je, which also accepts donations to support its work.
