Missouri eating disorder treatment center opens new location in Columbia

A new eating disorder treatment center opened Friday afternoon in Columbia.

McCallum Place is a nationally recognized organization with two other facilities in Missouri and Kansas.

One is in St. Louis and the other recently opened in Kansas City.

Dr. Kim McCallum founded the Missouri organization with her husband more than a decade ago.

The new Columbia facility is an outpatient center that provides specialized services for those with an eating disorder to come and receive treatment.

“We don’t have a facility like this in Columbia,” said Beth Shoyer, the clinical director in Columbia.

They are able to treat people as young as 12 years old and all the way up to adults for all different types of eating disorders.

McCallum believes proximity to the University of Missouri and other local colleges is going to be a great asset in helping local patients.

“Universities are hotbeds for eating disorders. The transition to college is complicated for someone who’s vulnerable [because] there’s a lot of change, you have to manage your food, social situations are new and complicated,” she said. “If you had an eating disorder before you came to college or you’re at risk, you’re much more vulnerable to relapse.”

This center is the only place in Columbia that is able to offer all different phases and angles of treatment in one place.

“There is very little available in Columbia and if you have a severe eating disorder you need good outpatient clinicians [and] Columbia has that,” McCallum said. “But you also need a place to go where you can have intensive focused therapy, and meal support, family education, and skills building.”

“Oftentimes for people with eating disorders, they need more intensive treatment than one hour a week with a therapist, a dietician, or a psychiatrist,” said Shoyer.

The Columbia location features outpatient services for now and have several different plans for patient care.

Patients can come in every day or several times a week for varying hours of care.

They can then work with therapists or dieticians on different parts of care, whether it be meal support or art therapy.

McCallum said it’s also more centrally located for patients who would now be able to stay at home and still get treatment.

“We’ve been treating folks with eating disorders for over a decade in St. Louis and have always had families and their loved ones come from across the state talking about the lack of services,” she said.

They already have several patients coming in starting next Monday.

Right now, McCallum said she doesn’t have plans to open a new facility anywhere else.

Her next step is to focus on specialized services for eating disorders, such as those that occur among elite athletes. She’ll also work more closely with university students.

“Our tutors are going to be working to keep them up to date on their courses, which is unusual even nationally,” she said.