Journalism student shares personal battle with eating disorder as she graduates

Emma Nelson, 21, walked across the stage at The Lowry today, having graduated with First Class honours in BA Journalism (Broadcast).

During her three years at Salford, Emma presented flagship shows for the University’s studio television network Quays TV, and is often the face lighting up a screen at our MediaCity campus building.

She is a confident, articulate and highly talented presenter and producer who is set to go into the industry as a leading light within the talent pool.

However, this very nearly didn’t happen. At the age of seventeen, as many of her friends were applying for universities, Emma was diagnosed with anorexia and told by her doctor that it was unlikely she would join them.

Now fully recovered and off the back of three memorable years at Salford, Emma decided to focus her final project on the eating disorder that nearly held her back from attending in the first place.

She made this decision partly to shed light on her experiences with the NHS support services, but also to emphasise the current lack of funding available, with cuts made across more than half of NHS integrated care boards for specialist eating-disorder services this year.

With her experience, Emma contemplated whether she would be able to immerse herself in similar stories to her own. 

“I was like, am I going to be able to do it? Am I in the right place? But, then when this all came out, it just made me so motivated to actually tell the story and to help people because it's so misjudged in so many different ways. “

Looking back, Emma said she always described herself as a ‘normal, healthy person’ before her diagnosis, and claimed she was always surrounded by a great group of friends and family.

Emma was first diagnosed with Anorexia when she was 17, but she started to lose weight about a year before that and entered a downward spiral.

She said: “I became quite a shadow of myself. There were so many times where it was like my parents struggled to be around me because they didn't really know what to do with me.”

Emma said it became very obvious to the people around her, as she got very addicted to her fitness, cutting meals, and the people around her didn’t necessarily know how to handle it.

A week after her referral, she was put into a new programme called FREED and was the first person in Derbyshire to get put on this programme on a trial basis.

She said: “It was a very, very lucky situation. I generally sometimes worry about what would’ve actually happened if I hadn't had that support when I needed it.”

During the summer break before University, her doctor told her she did not believe Emma would be healthy enough to go to university.

“She told me there was no way I was going to university. If I didn’t eat while I was on holiday in Italy, then she said I would be going to hospital. That hit me like a tonne of bricks.”

Emma did manage to gain enough weight, but she was told that recovery didn’t matter to her at the time, and that she was uninterested in getting better, whilst the then-18-year-old just wanted to go to university like the rest of her friends.

Emma was officially discharged from the NHS at the end of her first year so she spent her first year of recovery at Salford. Despite continual support from Eating Disorder services in Derbyshire and Manchester, Emma found recovery often isolating.

She said: “My eating was so different from everyone else’s, I had to meal plan everything. I used my eating as control like a lot of people do. It was a way to gain control of myself, but when going to university, you lose that control.”

“I just remember getting told one time that I'd gone backwards and I thought I was going to get checked out of service and they said you know you've lost weight again, and I remember going into a spiral and being like ‘I'm never going to get there.’” 

One of the main parts of University that Emma remembers helping her through recovery was working at Shock Radio.

“I did my first radio show and I was terrified. I was so nervous. I was crying. but I remember, the station manager at the time, turned around and reassured me, saying "You've got a great personality, you're so good on the radio!’-  And that's what I realised, the least interesting thing about me was my eating disorder.”

Emma’s time presenting on Shock Radio led to many incredible opportunities, and by her third year, Emma was Deputy Network Manager and an integral part of their team.

The experience allowed her to separate who she was from her illness and identify that this was not a part of who she was. She said this ability to identify her struggle helped her to connect with other people struggling in the world as a journalist.

Emma managed to get help within the first months of referral, but not many people are so fortunate. In many cases, people can wait three and a half years to be seen and diagnosed with an eating disorder.

After the parliamentary debate in March in response to cuts to eating disorder services, Emma wanted to spread awareness about the lack of support available. So, she created an audio documentary, filled with testimonies from people who had struggled with eating disorders and their family members, including the story of a mum who lost her daughter to Anorexia.

“I've met so many people who struggle with beating disorders as well who aren't ready to tell their story yet, but want to hear someone else's so that they don't feel as alone. And I know that when I was going through it myself, like I just needed to, I always wanted to see someone that had been through it before, and got out. So, I knew that that would have meant so much to me as well.”

Now, Emma will be walking across the stage at graduation today with a First Class honours degree.

“I think for me it's more than just a graduation. To have been previously told that there was no possible way for me to go to university and to now be here years later and be like - yeah I did that! It's almost like kicking my eating disorder in the face.”

After graduation, Emma is staying on at Salford as the Quays TV Technical Intern whilst continuing to spread awareness about eating disorders. She will be raising money for the eating disorder charity Beat by running the Manchester Half Marathon in October.

She added: “I think the reason why I'm so vocal about it now is because I never ever expected something like that to happen to me, ever. It's empowering to talk about it. You never know who's going through exactly the same thing as you went through. And I can fully say now that I do not think about food as a negative thing anymore.”

If you, or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, please contact your local GP for support, or visit Salford’s AskUs website for urgent help.