DENVER — Two weeks after a routine trip to a health clinic turned into a psychiatric hospitalization, Emma Troughton was on a plane to Denver.
The intervention had been building: By early 2017, Troughton had struggled with body image and eating for years, first as a high schooler in Indiana piecing through their gender identity (Troughton is nonbinary) and then as a college student in California processing personal trauma. School-issued laptops sent Troughton down social media rabbit holes of unhealthy weight loss strategies. A password-protected blog became a repository for body measurements and bad information.
Troughton crashed their car because of the brain fog and cognitive decline caused by their malnourishment. Providers at a campus health clinic were so alarmed they wouldn’t allow Troughton to return to class. After two weeks in a psychiatric unit, Troughton left for Denver. The city, they had learned, was a national hub for eating disorder treatment.
