Nancy and Laura are playing a dangerous game with anorexia. Laura is just 13 years old. Her weight slipped from 105 pounds to near 75 pounds in just one year.

"I was teased when I was younger and I've always been really self conscious and I just decided to do something about it," she said.

Laura's just starting.  For 50-year-old Nancy, this could be her last chance.

"I just was in such a state of starvation, I knew I needed help," she said.

She's been anorexic for 35 years, once weighing 70 pounds.

"I ended up in a locked psychiatric ward in Seattle. It was a nightmare," she said.

Even though it's hard to face a full plate of food, both Nancy and Laura are taking a new approach to eating disorders.

"Someone who has anorexia has … has lost the ability to recognize hunger, and they always feel full," said Jo Gallaugher, CEO of Mondometer US.

This clinic doesn't rely on psychiatric drugs or talk therapy. Instead, patients learn how to feel hungry and full. The key to success is a computerized device called the "Mandometer."

"It's measuring two things. It measures the rate at which a patient is eating and it  measures the satiety level, so the fullness," said Gallaugher.

"This is Laura's Mandometer and it has 350 grams for her main meals," said Karla Wren, Laura's case manager.

The Mandometer measures how much food is going on the  plate, and how much and how fast food is being taken off.

"One of the points of the machine is to retrain their brain, and so we want them to understand, at the beginning of a meal, a normal person feels hungry," said Wren.

Patients also learn how to ease their anxiety after eating a meal. The thermostat is  set at 108 degrees. The warmth relieves the stress anorexics feel after eating a meal.

Only 10 percent of Mandometer patients experience a relapse five years after therapy, compared to 50-percent of patients on standard therapy.

Laura has been in the program for six months and is getting ready to return home.

Nancy's insurance will only pay for the all-inclusive program for a total of six weeks each year, then it will be up to her to continue eating on her own.