Young women around the world are downloading a new application that is helping them manage eating disorders from the privacy of their phone.Serious eating disorders kill 20 per cent of sufferers if left untreated but with treatment that number falls to 3 per cent.That is why University of Wollongong PhD student Jenna Tregarthen decided to develop Recovery Record to place the tools for bulimia nervosa and anorexia recovery right in the palm of a hand.Less than three months after she came up with the idea, the app is downloadable on iPhone, iPod Touch, the iTunes app store and Android.There is so much interest in the concept at recoveryrecord.com that Ms Tregarthen has suspended her PhD and moved to California to continue her work.Recovery Record gives women with eating disorders an easy and accessible way to keep a food, mood and thought diary, schedule reminders, personalise their recovery program, construct a daily meal plan, track their progress and earn rewards for reaching goals.Ms Tregarthen is supported by UOW’s iAccelerate initiative and is a member of the Wollongong eClub.She was doing a PhD in clinical psychology when she realised the app, inspired from watching a close friend battle bulimia for a decade, could help women around the world.She accepted an opportunity to become a Design for Health Service Innovation Fellow at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business after previously being accepted into the Summer Institute for Entrepreneurship at Stanford where she put her idea forward. It was chosen as one of 12 new ventures to develop. Ms Tregarthen moved back to Stanford last month to work with the Stanford Eating Disorder Clinic to document the app’s results and pilot it in a clinical setting.‘‘I would like to see Recovery Record in the tool kit of every eating disorder therapist in America, and in the hands of the countless women who are toughing it alone,’’ she said.‘‘There is also enormous potential for it to be utilised as a tool for prevention and incorporated into the continuous care plan for eating disorder patients coming out of therapy.’’There are 11 million girls suffering eating disorders in the US, and in Australia one in 12 women are expected to have a serious eating disorder at some point. But they rarely tell their families or friends, instead continuing to suffer in silence.Ms Tregarthen said more than 20 girls recently told her they had signed up to a therapist after Recovery Record helped them admit they had an eating disorder.