Liam Manning grew up in Dubbo, in central western NSW, where he spent more than half a decade living with an eating disorder.
He found it difficult to reach out for help, due to a lack of local awareness around eating disorders.
"I think like many rural towns, the stigma is there to just sort of buck up and be strong, so I had a lot of issues talking about what I was experiencing," he said.
"I didn't know what an eating disorder was.
"Unfortunately when I finally did reach out for help, the support services in the area … weren't able to help.
"They didn't have the expertise, they didn't have the knowledge.
Mr Manning said access to specialised, research-based care, like that now offered through telehealth, would have made his recovery from anorexia nervosa significantly easier.
"It wouldn't have required multiple hospitalisations, it wouldn't have required the incredible darkness that I experienced when I was really, really unwell," he said.
"I would have caused far less damage to my body and put less strain on the family and friends that I had around me."
Telehealth may solve treatment gap
Researchers from the InsideOut Institute have worked with families across five regional and rural areas of the state to deliver treatment Mr Manning did not have access to.
The study looked into the effectiveness and feasibility of using telehealth to deliver family based treatment (FBT) for anorexia nervosa, where the whole family is involved in the treatment and recovery process.
InsideOut Institute researcher and PhD candidate Ashlea Hambleton said specialised FBT was often hard for regional and rural families to access.
"There's been a lot of work that's been done to try to upskill local clinicians within general mental health services and teams.
"But for rural and regional areas, the catchment area for a particular treatment centre can be very large, so that can still mean that families and individuals are travelling very long distances [and] giving up days of work to get to and from appointments."
High demand for services also created issues, with some families left facing wait lists after being referred to private practitioners or local GP offices.
Supporting the whole family
For Mr Manning, his family's involvement in the recovery process was crucial.
The InsideOut Institute's project focused on delivering treatment that involved not just the young person affected by the eating disorder, but their entire family.
Ms Hambleton said the study had returned promising results, with all the participants' conditions improving.
"Families are also commenting on things like the greater flexibility of having telehealth directly into the home," she said.
Call for better medical training
Mr Manning said while services like telehealth now offered a lifeline to regional families, more needed to be done to train local healthcare professionals.
"It's difficult because our local GPs are already overwhelmed to a large extent, but they need to be able to recognise the signs and symptoms of what an eating disorder looks like," he said.
