"I knew I was going to die unless I started to eat again"

IT was Christmas Eve when Sarah Leckenby, then 20, found herself making a life or death decision. She weighed only five-and-a-half stones after two years in the grip of anorexia nervosa and doctors had told her she needed to start eating again or she could die.

Sarah, now a happy, healthy and extremely young-looking 35-year-old mother of four, recalls the stark choice that faced her.

"I had no quality of life," she said. "I had no energy to do anything, and I was so thin it hurt to sit down. I felt cold all the time. I knew that either I was going to die - because I wouldn't allow anybody to force feed me - or I would have to start eating again."

The next day, her decision was made. Sarah tucked into her mum's Christmas meal - much to the relief of her family and boyfriend.

"Mum said it was the best Christmas present I could have given her," said Sarah.

Over the next few months, Sarah continued eating normally and began to put on weight. However, as she reached her natural size, she feared she would become overweight and soon became trapped in a cycle of binge eating and starvation. She had turned from anorexic to bulimic - but this time her family and friends weren't so concerned.

"Because I was a normal size they didn't seem to be so worried. It wasn't as if I was five stone and was going to peg it," Sarah recalled.

But the bulimia was as destructive to Sarah's life as had been the anorexia.

"I would take 100 laxatives and 50 diuretics a day. I now know they don't actually get rid of any calories, all they did was mess up my fluids and left me bloated.

"I'd either binge for a few days on all my 'forbidden foods' such as cakes, crisps and chocolate or starve myself by just eating low-fat food like cottage cheese."

This yo-yo eating played havoc with Sarah's health. "My hair started falling out, I had a swollen tummy and moon-shaped face and was dreadfully unhappy."

She once tried to end it all by taking an overdose of tablets, which failed because she was sick.

It was only after she split up with her long-term boyfriend that she began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

With the help and support of a new boyfriend Nick - later to become her husband - she began to look back at what might have triggered her eating problems.

"It all began when I was 18 and went on a diet. I wasn't that overweight - I am 5ft nine and weighed about ten-and-a-half stone, however people started saying unkind things about me: that I wasn't so pretty, wasn't looking my best, that it hurt them to see me looking so fat.

"It was a blow to my self esteem, so I went on a diet and as I started losing weight people started being positive about me again and saying how well I looked.

"I became terrified of putting weight on again in case people treated me not very nicely again."

As Sarah's anorexia took hold she became obsessed about food and exercise.

"Every day I ate a pot of cottage cheese, six low-fat yoghurts and six pears. I didn't waiver from that - anorexia is all about control.

"Once on holiday with my mum, I ate a piece of tomato, which had oil on it. My reaction was so extreme, I wanted to go home or to kill myself."

To burn off calories, she would run up and down the stairs hundreds of times a day and fill bags with heavy books and lug them around York.

Concerned, her parents and boyfriend encouraged her to see her GP, who referred her to a psychiatrist. But no one was able to reach her or help her, until she met Nick.

"Nick was good at helping me explore my feelings and confront the things the eating disorder was helping me mask," said Sarah.

When she fell pregnant with her first child, Joe - now 12 - her recovery continued. "My baby was more important than anything and my problems just disappeared. I ate like a normal person and I never had a problem with food again."

Sarah stresses it was the unconditional love from Nick and her rising self esteem which allowed her to recover as opposed to the pregnancy per se. From this perspective, she believes other people can benefit from support and understanding.

"It's all to do with self esteem," Sarah insisted. "Any eating disorder is about feelings. It's not about food. The obsession with food is so we don't have to cope with other problems in life and the things going on in our heads."

Today, 13 years later, Sarah has four sons: Joe, 12; Dylan, ten; Oliver eight and Patrick, six, and is training to be a counsellor. She is tall and thin but says she has never dieted again, not even after her pregnancies.

"I would put on about three stone with my pregnancies. They say it takes nine months to put the weight on and nine months for it to come off, which it did."

She says she eats healthily, but doesn't deny herself anything. "When you give your body a variety of foods, it gets what it wants so doesn't crave anything," she said.

Sarah hopes her story will inspire and encourage others to join a new support group for people with eating disorders, which she is setting up. The first meeting will take place on December 7.

She said: "People don't have to feel alone. They can come together in a safe environment and share their experiences and feelings and gain insight from each other.

"It does take courage to come to something like this, particularly if you are depressed, but people should come along. Everyone is in the same boat. Nobody will judge you and you only have to contribute as much or as little as you want to. There's absolutely no pressure."

The York Eating Disorders Support Group will meet fortnightly from Tuesday December 7 from 7-8.30pm at York CVS, The Priory Street Centre, Priory Street, York, YO1 6ET. For more details and information, contact Sarah Leckenby on 01904 430693 (weekdays from 9am-3pm) or 07742 034291 at any time

Updated: 09:24 Tuesday, November 23, 2004