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Zimmerman educates about eating disorders

In an effort to make people aware of the dangers of eating disorders, 16-year-old Rachel Zimmerman shared her battle with an eating disorder in the form of a speech for the Fayette County Fair 4-H speech competition.

On Monday, June 27, Zimmerman delivered her speech before the Fayette County Home and Community Education Board to be judged.
The daughter of Steve and Sally Zimmerman, Rachel has won notable awards at the Fayette County Fair for her speech, including: Class A ribbon: A rating; State Fair delegate ribbon; and Superior ribbon, meaning she was the best in class and went above and beyond.
Rachel, a member of the Shafter Friends 4-H Club, has been in 4-H for about eight years. She attends Vandalia Community High School and is the president of the Interact club at school for the upcoming school year.
Interact is a community service club in Vandalia High School that works through the Vandalia Rotary Club to help the community. She said that she is “really excited to be the president this year and can’t wait to see what we get to do to help the community.”
Her hobbies include playing basketball, singing and cooking/baking. She is an active member of the Unity Baptist Church, singing in the choir and also contributing special music solos.
Rachel wishes to help make people aware of eating disorders, to help the understanding of the diseases and the effects they have on the person who has one. She also wants people to be aware of and recognize the symptoms, and to realize the dangers and how the mind can be distorted through the effects on the person.
Rachel plans to continue her education after high school to prepare her for the field of nutrition. In her speech, she offers both warnings, but also hope and encouragement to the victim and their loved ones (to recognize and admit the illness).  
“When I was 12 years old, I was admitted to a hospital for the first time in my life, It was very scary,” Rachel said in her speech.
“The doctor told me I had a disorder that I had only heard about in health class – anorexia.  Anorexia is an emotional eating disorder where a person has an obsessive desire to lose weight and will do anything to do so.
“When the doctor told me this, I was in denial,” she said. “I was almost 80 pounds and I was about 5 feet, 7 inches tall. I was not healthy, but I didn’t believe anything was wrong with me.
“I’m here today to make you aware of these disorders, because they are becoming more common every day,” Rachel said.
“Eating disorders are very complex – they cause physical and mental effects to the victim. These effects can be difficult to trea,, but treatment is possible. The most apparent of the effects are physical,” she said.
She shared that anorexia is one of three main types of eating disorders, as it “consists of many internal problems that affect the victim negatively, including dehydration and malnutrition. This is a lack of sufficient nutrition. If not dealt with soon, this can lead to death,” she said.
She described bulimia and binge eating, another type of eating disorder, with effects that can parallel with obesity, which carries the risk of increased possibility of the heart essentially stopping.
Among many other facts and information about the eating disorders, she described how they can actually distort your mind, cause denial and have another mental effect – they can also cause depression.  
“Eating disorders are overlooked every day, owing to the belief that they are of vainly or by choice, but many influences have put these thoughts and behavior into men and women,” Rachel said.
She concluded the speech with, “I know how hard it is to recover from an eating disorder, but it is possible. Help me bring awareness to those overlooked disorders, because they aren’t just disorders; they affect many people we know, and love and recovery is possible.”
Following the delivery of the speech, Rachel said that she was really motivated to recovery when a doctor told her that a feeding tube may have to be inserted if she did not start recovering.
Then, when she saw a young girl in an ICU with a feeding tube, she was motivated to win her battle with anorexia … and further motivated to help others as a part of her life’s work, which she has begun with her very well-written, informational and sincerely delivered speech.  

 

 

Rachel Zimmerman, right, is shown with Fayette County HCE Board President Flo Allen.

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