Living With Food: The Science Supporting Eating Disorder Treatment

Last summer, CCED’s blog, “Living With Food: The Science Supporting Eating Disorder Treatment,” was voted one of 18 best eating disorder blogs in 2012. Now, we’ve been nominated for Healthline’s “Best Health Blog of 2012” contest! Healthline, an online information hub for everything health, from promoting healthy lifestyles to facilitating disease prevention, is on the hunt for the best fitness, mental health and lifestyle blogs on the web.

We are honored to be nominated for this award, and we would like to thank all of our contributors for helping to make our blog an information hub for any individual suffering from an eating disorder.

Win or lose, we look forward to continuing to serve our readers in 2013 with eating disorder information and advice, including the latest treatment findings and recovery guidance. We hope to better connect with you and your family, so together we can pave the road to worry-free, healthy living.

This post was written by Samantha Mishne, LISW-S, ICDC-S, CCED’s associate director of DBT programming. She shares her hopes for kindness, both for ourselves and others, as it relates to eating disorder treatment. Her opinions are her own.

On Friday, Dec. 14th, I was going about my day running around getting ready for the holidays. While in the car, I turned on NPR to hear the news. I was shocked and immediately tearful after hearing about the awful events that were unfolding at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut. (Perhaps my strong reaction was because I was a disaster volunteer called out to provide grief counseling following our community school shooting.) There were so many unanswered questions as the news was breaking. I used the skill of pushing away, after all I have two small children both enrolled in grade school, and that day I was going to speak at my child’s school about what I do for a living and the problems I face at work.

I watched the news Saturday and was once again filled with sadness and an overwhelming feeling of loss as they released the names and ages of the victims. I knew at that moment the sadness would not dissipate just by hugging my children. Instead, I decided I would try and complete one act of random kindness for the 26 victims of the Newtown, CT, tragedy.

The next morning when I went to purchase my usual cup of coffee, I paid the clerk for three additional and asked that he give them to whoever he wanted. The following day, I placed 10 lottery tickets on random cars. I am continuing to try and identify truly random acts of kindness, for which I will get nothing in return, not even a thank you. It is harder than you think, and that’s how it relates to what I do professionally. I try and push for behavioral change daily and validate where people are in this moment and the small changes that I do observe. Sometimes because of the nature of the eating disorders we treat, I often forget to validate or observe the small progress our patients make, and instead I focus on the bigger picture.

I am sharing my wish to commit 26 random acts of kindness because I want accountability. I have gotten off to a great start, but as the media stops its coverage and the names fade will I forget the impact this has had on me? Maybe you do not want to take on such a project, but perhaps you can engage in kindness in other ways? By being kind to yourself, by asking for help when needed, by letting others help you?

A tragedy has occurred, one that we will not be able to make sense of, kind of like being diagnosed with an eating disorder. You can ask why or you can ask what you can do about it. I would love to go to the District of Columbia and lobby for mental health coverage and gun control, but I have two small children that need me. So for now, I am just trying to increase my kindness toward others in my community. Today, I will call the gas company and try and pay someone’s gas bill that is about to shut off. I am not naïve enough to believe that this will end such tragedies, but maybe it will increase kindness in the world starting with how we treat ourselves.

This week’s roundup of eating disorder blog posts and articles include: understanding that deprivation is a choice; news about a recent study that compared affects of fasting among women with bulimia and healthy women; advice for navigating through college life; and what we can learn about body image from world-class athletes.

Deprivation and Eating
Psychotherapist and author Karen Koenig writes about the importance of understanding where the experience and feelings about deprivation come from. Disregulated eaters often feel deprived when they refrain from eating foods they crave. When you say no to a food you crave because eating it is not going to be healthy in the long run, you’re not deprived, you’re making a choice. We make decisions and recognize that life has trade-offs.  

How Fasting Affects Women with Bulimia Differently from Healthy Women
Sumati Gupta, PhD, of New York City’s Cognitive Health Group shares a recent study with us that examined 21 women with bulimia and 20 women who didn’t meet the criteria for any eating disorder. It studied how fasting would affect the women’s moods or cravings for certain foods, and the amount of food they’d eat after the fast. The main difference they found between the two groups was how fasting affected their moods.  

Navigating Through College Life
Eating Disorder Hope writes, “Eating disorders are more likely to develop during transitional phases in one’s life, and the transition to college definitely falls under this category.” A need for healthy coping and interpersonal skills, as well as the ability to effectively manage stress, while implementing self-care are important ways to make it through, the blog advises.

What ESPN Magazine’s Body Issue (“Bodies We Want 2012”) Can Teach Us About Body Image
The University of North Carolina’s Eating Disorder Program writes about a recent issue of ESPN Magazine that depicted dozens of photos of world-class athletes in the raw, commenting honestly about their experiences with their bodies and their body image. “I think these athletes … have learned to value function over form and to leverage that value system to achieve great success in their ‘jobs’ as professional athletes,” the blog reads.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this post, or if you spot a great blog or article you think we should share with our readers, please email us at blog@eatingdisorderscleveland.org.

This week’s roundup of eating disorder blog posts and articles include: eliminating shame as the center of your focus; news about California’s victory in enforcing the law that insurers must pay for residential treatment for eating disorders; and how increased media influences play a significant role in women considered at risk for an eating disorder.

Shame as your Shadow
Psychotherapist and author Karen Koenig shares her thoughts behind shame: what it means, how it affects people and how a person can manage it. She introduces a concept called, selective attention, and explains how people choose to cue into specific parts of the environment and we can change what we cue into. “It’s time to stop setting your emotional sights on shame,” she writes.

Another Victory for Mental Health Coverage
The University of North Carolina’s Eating Disorder Program shares with us news that the United States Court of Appeals upheld an August 2011 appellate decision that insurers in California must pay for residential treatment for eating disorders. In 1999, California implemented an act that required mental health benefits be covered under the same terms and conditions as medical benefits. The blog reads, “This is yet another significant victory for those of us raising our voices to get equal coverage for eating disorders and other mental illnesses.”

Eating Disorders in the UAE: Media Influences, Lagging Treatment
Journalist Nancy Matsumoto writes about her surprise after hearing a story about an eating disorder patient in Abu Dhabi. “In a region where public dress for women is extremely modest and unrevealing,” she writes. “ … and yet even though no one could discern the shape or exact size of her body, at least in public, this 14-year-old seemed to be suffering from body image distortion.” She points to a recent survey of 500 Emirati women that showed increased media influences played a significant role in the high percentage of women considered at risk for an eating disorder. The majority of the subjects reported watching television and reading appearance-related magazines.  

If you have any questions or comments regarding this post, or if you spot a great blog or article you think we should share with our readers, please email us at blog@eatingdisorderscleveland.org.

CCED's blog, "Living With Food: The Science Supporting Eating Disorder Treatment," was voted one of 18 best eating disorder blogs in 2012 by Healthline! Healthline is an online information hub for everything health, from promoting healthy lifestyles to facilitating disease prevention. The site wrote, "From personal journeys to medical facts, these blogs offer the best of the best on the web about eating disorders."

What did Healthline say about CCED's blog? "Whether you visit this site to find information about your own condition or to help a loved one find support, this site delivers."

You can check out its review of our blog, plus comments on 17 other eating disorder blogs here.

This week’s roundup of eating disorders blog posts and articles include: talking about your eating disorder without shame; getting rid of the need to explain yourself or what you eat; understanding the motivation behind becoming a vegetarian; and navigating Phase III of Maudsley Family Based Therapy.

Coming out the of (ED) Closet
Carrie Arnold, recovering from a decade-plus battle with anorexia nervosa, shares with us her struggle in revealing her “psychiatric rap sheet,” as she calls it, to co-workers, classmates and friends. After she came out of the (ED) closet, she admits the world did not stop turning and she realized there’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Grocery Carts and Unnecessary Explanations
Author Doris Smeltzer, who lost her daughter due to bulimia nervosa, tells us about an interesting encounter she had in the grocery store. While shopping for a dinner party, an acquaintance walked over to say hello to her and proceeded to glance down to view the contents in her shopping cart. Doris was surprised to feel satisfaction knowing it was filled with fresh produce. She reminds us, however, none of us should feel the need to explain our food purchases.  

The Discovery that Leads to Freedom and Joy
Psychotherapist Joanna Poppink shares with us this inspiring quote: “When you have to start compromising yourself on your morals for the people around you, it’s probably time to change the people around you.” She reminds us this discovery leads to great freedom and new joy.

Is Being a Vegetarian a Socially Acceptable Way to Engage in your Eating Disorder?
Sumati Gupta, PhD, of New York City’s Cognitive Health Group writes about two new studies published that state people with eating disorders have a tendency to be vegetarian and examined their motives behind it. She says it's important to explore what initially drove the person to become a vegetarian, whether that’s ethics, health or an underlying desire to lose weight.

Navigating Phase III
Last week, psychologist and trained scientist-practitioner Dr. Sarah Ravin wrote about common benchmarks she recommends families use to know when their child is ready to enter Phase II of Maudsley Family Based Therapy. This week, she covers Phase III, which focuses on any remaining issues. The goal of this phase is to establish a healthy adolescent identity.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this post, or if you spot a great blog or article you think we should share with our readers, please email us at blog@eatingdisorderscleveland.org.

In addition to providing the most effective evidence-based treatment, it is our mission to support and educate children, teens and adults suffering from an eating disorder. So starting today, CCED will scour some of the best (in our opinion) eating disorder blogs to bring you the latest posts and articles each week on this devastating illness. Our hope is to walk with you, hand in hand, on your journey to a worry-free, healthy lifestyle.

Some of the topics we’ll cover include:

• Recovery advice
• Treatment
• Parental advice
• Research
• News on food, weight and body image

Here are our top picks of the week:

I AM Recovered
Author Jenni Shaefer shares with us an inspiring eating disorder recovery message she received from Karine Berthou, founder and CEO of the Succeed Foundation. The letter talks about life after an eating disorder: a joy of food, the compassion for herself and an end to the fear of failure.

I am an (Eating Disorder Research) Junkie
Dr. Marcia Herrin, founder of the Dartmouth College Eating Disorders Prevention, Education and Treatment program, has been trained in Maudsley Family Based Therapy  techniques and truly believes patients make greater strides when their parents are involved in treatment. She strongly encourages parents to ask their child’s therapist if they have training in FBT or have studied the FBT treatment manuals. If so, parents should take advantage of these important resources, she says.

People-Pleasing and Emotions
Psychotherapist Karen Koenig writes about the frequent urge of disregulated eaters to not appear emotionally different from others. She sees so often patients trying to adjust their moods to someone else’s so much so that they lose focus of their own feelings. But, there’s good news: patients can relearn to connect with their true emotions. She walks readers through the steps to understanding you’re entitled to your own feelings.

Navigating Phase II
Psychologist and trained scientist-practitioner Dr. Sarah Ravin writes about common benchmarks she recommends families use to know when their child is ready to enter Phase II of Maudsley Family Based Therapy. In the second phase of treatment, parents return control over eating to the child, helping him/her return to normal development. Some of these benchmarks include: the patient’s weight is fully restored, the metabolism has normalized and the patient is no longer engaging in eating disorder behaviors.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this post, or if you spot a great blog or article you think we should share with our readers, please email us at blog@eatingdisorderscleveland.org.

Join in with CCED as we celebrate NEDA’s National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, Feb. 26 through March 3. We’re hosting a Clothing Drive at our center to benefit the Fatima Family Center and participating in the University of Mount Union’s Resource Fair and the free showing of “America the Beautiful.”

Helping You, Helping Them Clothing Drive

It’s time to get rid of those old jeans, tops and even scales that you don’t need anymore and donate them to those in need. We’ll keep a donation box in our reception area for collection and, in return, we’re offering free NEDA tattoos for those who donate.  

The Fatima Family Center, located in Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood, offers programs and services for children and adults, including: summer camp, recreational programs, parenting classes, health screenings and a food pantry. In 2002, it was recognized by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as one of the top five family centers in the country.

University of Mount Union Counseling Services Resource Fair

The University of Mount Union Counseling Services is hosting a free evening event, held Feb. 27 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the UMU Theatre. Co-sponsored by the Association for Women Students; Raider Programming Board; and the Psychology Club, the event will include a Resource Fair, Educational Slide Show, Documentary Film, “America the Beautiful,” and a raffle.

CCED is hosting an informational table at the Resource Fair to answer questions and foster education surrounding this disease. We’ll also be there for the showing of the documentary film at 7 p.m.

The documentary by Darryl Roberts ponders the question, “Is America Obsessed with Beauty?” by following a typical teenager, Gerren Taylor, who becomes America’s next top supermodel. The filmmaker goes on a two-year journey to examine our country’s obsession with physical perfection and discovers how these unattainable images contribute to low self-esteem, body dysmorphia and eating disorders in young women.