A DOCTOR working in the Forth Valley area is raising money for an eating disorder charity with an epic off-road run this month.

Stephen Anderson is hard at training ahead of the Glencoe Marathon, a full 26.2-mile trail run with 1,608meters of elevation into the foothills of Ben Nevis.

The consultant psychiatrist works at NHS Forth Valley’s eating disorder service and decided to take the challenge on for charity Beat after a friend roped him in.

Beat is an eating disorder charity so it is close to Dr Anderson’s heart.

He said: “Eating disorders are complex mental and physical disorders and can be very difficult to recover from.

“There is often a perception that these disorders are all about weight and that the person has somehow chosen to be like this, and that is not the case at all.

“It is a genuine privilege being able to work with people in their recovery from these horrible illnesses, but they generally need more support than we can provide within our eating disorder service.

“Patients and their loved ones need more support and Beat provides a variety of options that people can access.

“I am keen to help increase awareness of the support offered by Beat and to raise money to help Beat continue to deliver this support locally.”

Dr Anderson is raising cash on justgiving.com/fundraising/stephenanderson1 and has already surpassed his £1,000 target, which is almost enough to run the Beat Helpline for a day.

It is estimated around 1.25million people in the UK suffer from an eating disorder, serious mental illnesses that include binge eating, anorexia, bulimia and more.