i don't want to see you die at the gym.

Okay, I had a bit of disturbing incident yesterday and want some input as to how I should feel.

I was at the Bloomington Lifetime yesterday for the first time. There was a girl in the row in front of me on an elliptical. She was going balls out. She was not drinking any water. And her bones were about to pop out of her skin. It was painfully clear that this woman is deeply into an eating disorder. Her ankles were about 4 inches in diameter and her muscles looked like they had been adhered to a skeleton in biology class. She had this horrified look on her face as she stared at herself in the mirror, pushing herself to go harder. After she finished at least 45 minutes on that machine, she hopped on to another machine and kept pushing.

So my question is this: what responsibility do we have to say something in this situation? My first reaction is that although she clearly needs help, it is not my job as a stranger to step in and say something. People with eating disorders are notoriously difficult to help--a stranger stepping in isn't going to do much. Does the gym have a responsibility when they see a member clearly abusing their body at their club? What if this woman has no one in her life that will confront her about her problem? What if her heart just gives up one day?

What do you think about this?