Health Minster Greg Hunt will announce an Australian Eating Disorder Research and Translation Strategy developed under a $4 million federal grant by the InsideOut Institute, which identifies the top 10 priority areas in greatest need of additional research.

“We know that early intervention can prevent severe illness, we know that many people can fully recover if they get the right therapy at the right time,” said the Director of the InsideOut Institute at the University of Sydney Dr Sarah Maguire.

“But unless we discover the right treatments through research and translate them into the right therapies received at the right time, people don’t and won’t recover,” she said.

The Daily Telegraph speaks to Liam Manning, a 23 year old who developed his eating disorder at the age of 10 when schoolmates teased him about his weight.

He says that he felt he “got well in spite of the healthcare system, rather than because of it".

"Even the clinic that I went to, we had the nurse unit manager tell me that I’m going to live with this for the rest of my life. I’m never going to recover. I’ll be back here again," he said.

It was only when he found a good psychologist in Newcastle, north of Sydney, who treated the condition as a mental illness and addressed his self-esteem issues that Liam began his recovery.

The Inside Out Institute is calling for the creation of permanent professorial chairs of eating disorders at universities and Research Centres of Excellence to drive study into the little understood conditions.