When their daughter stopped eating, these parents turned to a unique form of treatment.
Katrina Johnson was five years old when her parents Heidi and Chris adopted her and her sister from the foster system. “I was excited to be in a stable environment and have ‘my people,’” Katrina recalls. With two biological sons and another adopted daughter, the Johnsons were now a family of seven.
But in the fifth grade, Katrina started attracting negative attention at school, since she’d developed more quickly than her peers; her classmates began commenting on her appearance: “It felt like I was getting attacked for something I couldn’t control,” she says. As one of the only students of color at her school, Katrina already felt different, and the comments about her changing body only made her feel more isolated.
During a family mission trip to Africa, Katrina’s parents noticed that she was restricting calories and losing weight. Upon returning to the U.S., Heidi took her daughter to see her pediatrician. “The doctor was not very helpful,” says Heidi. “There was no plan of action for us.”
As Katrina continued to lose weight dramatically, Chris and Heidi knew they needed serious help: They feared an in-patient treatment program would be traumatic for their daughter, but didn’t feel qualified to help her on their own. After doing some research, Chris found Equip, an online treatment program for young people dealing with eating disorders. For six hours a week, Katrina and her parents met virtually with a psychologist, peer counselor, dietitian, and nurse practitioner. Heidi was particularly grateful for the experts who aided in her daughter’s treatment: “Without that team walking us through every step, I don’t know how we would have done it.”
As Katrina progressed in her recovery, Heidi and Chris felt their daughter returning to them: “It was almost like my child had been covered in a fog, and she started to step out of that,” says Heidi. “We were seeing more of her, and less of the eating disorder.”
After seven months working with Equip, Katrina finally hit her goal weight. “I started being kinder to my parents, and more loving,” says Katrina. “I finally felt like I was healthy again.”
While Heidi and Chris still worry Katrina may have a setback, they’re confident that as a family, they now have the tools to fight back against the eating disorder. “It’s an ugly disease,” says Heidi, “It takes so much… so it’s been beautiful to see Katrina come back to us.”
