Treatment for Eating Disorders
"Confront your fears, list them, get to know them, and only then will you be able to put them aside and move ahead."
Jerry Gilles
Eating Disorders include anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, compulsive over eating, and various combinations of these.
It is common for someone to have one type of disorder, only to develop symptoms of another over time. The severity of an eating disorder should be formally assessed by professionals with specific knowledge, experience, and training.
Eating disorders are not the same as disordered eating:
Many of use struggle to eat well, appreciate and accept our physical self, and to separate appearance from self-worth. Our culture presence us with inaccurate information about eating and weight, exercise, and the "ideal" body. These are risk factors for developing an eating disorders, but alone they do not cause an eating disorder.
An Eating Disorder is much more complex than disordered eating:
Research on eating disorders has informed us that eating disorders are illnesses that involve biological, psychological, and social components. Eating disorders involve multiple parts of the brain that impact hunger, body image, mood regulation, and compulsive behaviors.
Eating disorders are difficult to overcome:
The best outcomes occur when the disorder is identified and treated in its early stages. When not treated, the disorder becomes crystalized as a person learns to manage difficult emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and stressors by engaging in eating disorder behaviors. Concurrently, eating disorder behaviors lead to neurological, physiological, and psychological changes that make the disorder even more difficult to overcome.
Eating disorders can be overcome:
Treatment for eating disorders is available, however, treatment is complex and requires coordinated treatment with a physician or other medical professionals, nutritionist, and a mental health professional. Health status, the presence of co-occuring disorders, motivation, and the severity of the eating disorder are all considered when deciding whether a person can best be helped in an outpatient setting or will require the safety and structure of a residential or hospital setting.