ot give rise to any sustained campaign to keep anorexia in the public eye. The next round of celebrity publicity for the disorder came with the story of Melissa DeHart, a television reporter who went public with her problem.
DeHart was a rookie TV reporter in Louisiana with a promising career, who started dieting at age 17 when she weighed 135 lbs, and over the course of 11 years unsuccessfully sought treatment for her anorexia nervosa and bulimia (The Poster, 2003). Her condition did not improve, and her weakened condition meant she could no longer maintain her job, and she and her family spent over $100,000 on treatment for the disorder.
In 2002, DeHart and a friend tried a letter-writing campaign to TV shows to try and bring attention to her plight, and Maury Povich decided to cover her story and recovery, paying her $25,000, which covered the cost of six-months treatment at the Westwind Eating Disorder and Recovery Center in Canada (The Poster, 2003). After leaving the center and living unsupervi
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