History
When we created the Anorexia and Bulimia Center(ABC) of Hawaii in the early 1980’s, it was out of the recognition that many women were unable to get the assistance they needed to address their struggles with eating, weight, and body image issues, as well as serious eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Since that time, ABC Hawaii has continued to evolve into a highly skilled collection of eating disorder professionals dedicated to treating women and girls of all ages, sizes, ethnicities, and a full range of disordered eating issues.
One of the ongoing problems we encountered over the years at ABC Hawaii was that when individuals needed a higher level of care because their eating disorder was so entrenched, we would have to refer them for residential treatment on the Mainland. This was not only costly, but often imposed additional hardship since those in need of more intensive treatment would have to take time off from work or school, and also leave behind their families. For many women, this was not a viable option and they were consequently not able to get the type of treatment in Hawaii they needed to ensure recovery. For those women who did seek help on the Mainland, the re-entry process to the environments they had left behind posed a whole new set of adjustments and often the gains they made while off island were lost or compromised.
The ‘Ai Pono Women’s Program was borne out of the obvious need for intensive eating disorders treatment that would be minimally disruptive, culturally sensitive, and allow for treatment issues to be addressed as they came up in the clients’ current living environments.
In September 2001 we opened our doors and became the first eating disorders intensive outpatient program (EDIOP) in the country. We began treating small groups of women using the same approach put forth in Eating in the Light of the Moon, which views eating disorders as having meaning and purpose, as an attempt to cope with emotions that are difficult or overwhelming. At ‘Ai Pono, we believe complete recovery from an eating disorder is possible, providing that one finds the meaning behind it, discovers the function it has served, and then develops the necessary skills to replace it.
Recent research conducted in 2004 has confirmed the effectiveness of our approach. When eating disorder symptoms were measured before and after completion of the program (with the Eating Disorders Inventory -EDI) statistically significant improvement was demonstrated on all scales of the EDI. The study examined the various components of the the ‘Ai Pono Women’s Program and determined it to be an integrative treatment program that is effective with an ethnically and culturally diverse population.