Girl Recounts How Anorexia Nearly Killed Her

 Anorexia is an emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat.

A GIRL who was days away from death after her weight plummeted to just FIVE STONE has shared shocking pictures of her in the grip of anorexia in a bid to inspire others to seek help.

Hannah Koestler, now 22, told how she wanted to show the “grim reality” of the devastating illness by posting distressing photographs of her skeletal body connected to a feeding tube online

The brave student, whose BMI had dropped to just 11, now has 120,000 followers on Instagram and receives dozens of messages a day from people suffering from eating disorders.

Hannah, who is 5ft 11 and now a healthy size eight having recovered from her anorexia, admitted at one stage she was living off three rice crackers a day and was the dress size of a 10-year-old child.

Where a healthy BMI (Body Mass Index) is between 18 and 24, Hannah dropped to 11, meaning she was dangerously underweight.

She is now back up to a healthy BMI of 19 and hopes her journey will encourage other sufferers to reach out.

Hannah said: “I know that the pictures are graphic, but they’re my journey and we shouldn’t shy away from the truth.

“Anorexia is a cruel illness that ravishes the body and mind.

“I hope that my pictures will deter other people from developing eating disorders and inspire those in its grips to get help.

“Looking at old pictures always brings back all the memories of what happened to me, but I’ve never been happier than I am now and I want people to know that.”

Hannah was left with organ failure and hair loss as a result of her extreme dieting.

She believes her anorexia was triggered by her family constantly being on the move as a teen.

While she was originally born in Austria, by the time she was a teenager she had already lived in America, China, South Korea and Japan.

She was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in November 2011 while she was completing her final exams for high school in Japan, aged 17.
Between September and November 2011, she dropped from 10st 2 and a dress size 10 to 8st 5 and a dress size six.
Her worried parents took her to the doctors but she struggled to get effective treatment.
Hannah recalled: “They just told my mum to cook for me and watch me eat every meal, but it didn’t work because I was so fussy about what I would and would not eat.”

When she couldn’t control what school she went to or how long her friendships lasted, Hannah said she began to take solace in controlling what she could eat.

She explained: “I started eating very healthy, unprocessed foods and cut out junk food completely.

“It became more and more selective, and soon I was completely eliminating fats and eating very minimal carbs.

“Soon I only felt comfortable eating vegetables and steamed tofu.”