Media Release

Circus skills program helps patients with eating disorders

27 November 2007

Patients in NorthWestern Mental Health’s Eating Disorders Day Patient Program are benefiting from a groundbreaking pilot program that uses circus skills to improve their wellbeing.

Developed collaboratively between the NWMH Eating Disorders Day Patient team and the Women’s Circus, the Circus Skills program is a world first and aims to develop a sense of connection with the participants’ bodies, encourage positive risk taking, and promote physical skill development, while attending to the compulsive tendencies of an eating disorder.

Activities in the Circus Skills program include trust exercises, stretching to develop flexibility, conditioning to develop strength, and performance circus skills – acrobalance, aerials, juggling and hula-hoops.

Key benefits of the program include breaking social isolation; increased self-esteem; and developing a sense of persistence without becoming compulsive.

Jani White, NWMH Eating Disorders Unit Day Patient Coordinator said, “In recent years there has been an increase in the number of eating disorder day patients for whom exercising excessively to achieve or maintain low weights has been a major problem.

“Interventions to interrupt this compulsive cycle are recommended, but it presents a dilemma because moderate levels of exercise can be effective in promoting a sense of wellbeing and can be a great way to build social and recreational interests. 

“The Circus Skills program offers a very different exercise experience for patients. It uses very specialised equipment and the activities occur at a fixed time in a fixed venue. This ensures that the experience is unique and cannot be incorporated into a regular regime.

“Learning and executing circus skills requires a lot of concentration. Unlike running on a treadmill, swinging from a trapeze or climbing a rope has an edge to it that demands attention.

“The patients are enthusiastic about the program, so they put in the extra effort to achieve, and once they can perform the skills competently it is very rewarding for them.

“The Circus Skills sessions engage patients in demanding levels of teamwork, which build trust and safety within the group. The trust transfers to other challenging situations in the Day Patient Program aiding the patients’ recovery.

“After completing the Circus Skills program three patients who had compelling urges to exercise have joined mainstream recreational exercise activities with a new and clear understating about the role of exercise, in both sustaining their illness and in treating it”, Jani White said.

The Circus Skills pilot program has yielded fantastic results. It is expected that the program will be rolled out next year, however the ongoing funding must first be secured.

Eating Disorders Day Patient Program (DPP)

Established in 1997, NorthWestern Mental Health’s Eating Disorders Day Patient Program is an intensive treatment option for people suffering from an eating disorder.

It is one of three tiers of support available to people with eating disorders from NorthWestern Mental Health at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

The program runs five days a week and is staffed by a multi disciplinary team, which includes a dietician, a psychologist, a social worker, psychiatrists, and nurses.

Each year approximately 20-30 patients receive ongoing treatment as part of the Day Patient Program.

The average age of patients is 18-30.

The DPP supports people with Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specialised) to normalise their dietary intake and eating behaviours.

The program facilitates the development of the skills vital to combat the oppressive mental preoccupation with fearful thoughts about food and fat that most patients experience.

The program also aims to create positive change in activities that have been adversely affected by the eating disorder to the extent that they maintain the illness, such as social isolation.

What is over exercise?

The term ‘over exercise’ is a bit of a misnomer as it defines quantity without capturing the compelling quality of the activity.

There are often people in the DPP whose physical activity may only involve a walk or run every day, which in itself would not be considered problematic. The issue is that this exercise is borne by unrelenting compulsion, and often while the patient is physically or medically compromised.

While some people may report exercising to relax, they generally describe exercising to relieve or stave off torturous experiences of guilt or shame they experience by not exercising. Any exercise that is used to prevent or relieve these feelings of guilt is too much exercise.

Other patients feel the same compulsion to exercise but are not confused with ‘normal’ or ‘recreational’ exercise. These patients may challenge elite athletes in the quantity of exercise they engage in. In these cases going to the gym or exercise classes can become so intensive that time for anything else, including work, is seriously compromised.

• Media contact: Katrina Coulson - 0419 878 925.
• The Women's Circus website.