FEBRUARY 28 marks the start of Eating Disorder Awareness Week and as the national event approaches, Northwich woman Helen Davies speaks to the Guardian about her own ordeal with anorexia, and what she’s doing to support others with similar conditions.

In 1998 Helen Davies was much like any typical university fresher. The sociable, sporty and energetic youngster had lots of friends, was about to embark upon three years of study and excited about what the future would hold.

But along the way Helen found herself in the grip of anorexia, a condition which national charity Beat says affects around 10 per cent of the estimated 1.25million people in the UK who have an eating disorder.

Today, the 39-year-old youth work officer from Blandford Drive in Kingsmead, runs Cheshire West Eating Support Team (CWEST), a group for adults living with or supporting others with eating disorders of any kind. And for almost eight years she’s helped scores of men and women on their road to recovery, all because she’s walked in their shoes.

During one of her toughest periods, Helen was barely eating but exercising excessively every day. By the time she was first admitted into a specialist unit at Macclesfield Hospital she weighed four-and-a-half-stone, around half her recommended body weight.

Helen explained: “It’s hard to put a finger on exactly when it started but my eating disorder was triggered by anxiety and depression. I wasn’t coping well at all at university. It was such a new situation and after a while I felt very out of my depth.

“Exercise became something of a comfort for me. I’d always been sporty and so I exercised regularly, but eventually it turned into a situation where I was exercising although I’d barely eaten anything at all that day.

“It got to the stage where I didn’t really eat unless I was in a social situation. I wasn’t suicidal by any means, but I just couldn’t see the point in eating. Every mouthful would be a battle.

“For a while I was able to disguise my anorexia because when I was with friends or family I appeared to be eating OK. But when I was on my own, I just had no desire to eat.”

Added to her situation was the fact that Helen struggled with body dysmorphia, so at the time family and friends expressed their concerns, when she looked in the mirror, she couldn’t see what they could.

She said: “The thing about anorexia is that it is a mental illness which manifests as a physical condition. It completely affects your cognition. I can remember my mum desperately trying to point out how thin I looked, and I just couldn’t see what she was referring to.

“When I went into hospital for the first time, I couldn’t walk properly because the muscles in my legs had wasted away. Even then, I didn’t recognise that it was because of what I was doing, I just thought there was something wrong with my legs.”

“Looking back, it’s amazing to think how much my body coped with.”

For a while Helen entered a cycle of treatment and relapse and eventually found a combination of therapy and support which led to her recovery. She began to do youth work with Cheshire West and Chester Council (then Cheshire County Council), something she loved and discovered she was great at. Before long, bosses suggested she might want to train as a youth worker and offered to put her through a degree in youth and community work at Manchester Metropolitan University.

She said: “My family was terrified that it might trigger my illness again, but it was a whole different ball game. I was in a really good place and had found something that I truly loved.”

In 2011, Helen launched CWEST enlisting the help of three volunteers and the team set up two monthly support sessions, for both carers and sufferers aged 18 or more.

In the past eight years she’s helped dozens of people who have struggled with eating disorders.

She said: “There is no one person who presented in the same way. Everyone’s journey is unique to them, but there are some commonalities and we provide a space for people to talk and share their stories, in confidence.”

CWEST’s free recovery and support groups take place each month at Cheshire Carers Centre, on London Road. However, as CWEST is not a registered charity, Helen often holds fundraising events to ensure the service remains free for users the next event is a pamper party taking place at Northwich and District Youth Centre in Winnington on Sunday, March 3 at the end of Eating Disorder Awareness Week.

For more information, visit cwest.me.uk