Living With Food: The Science Supporting Eating Disorder Treatment

I was at my block party last night and fell into a conversation about being in your 40's with an eating disorder. Turns out a friend, Meagan (note- all names have been changed in this blog post), who is a dancer, has been pulling away from a friend of hers because her friend's eating disorder was just too intense. Her friend has been hospitalized a number of times, is still unable to acknowledge her ED, likely is in renal failure, and is probably going to die soon. Another neighbor, Tina, happened by and with some sense of disgust started explaining that she, Tina, couldn't understand eating disorders, had no food issues, loved to run just for the endorphin high, and wasn't eating at the party because she had already had dinner beforehand. I felt like Meagan at that point, just wanting to pull away. (It was a party, after all.) I made a few attempts to say that everyone has food issues and that it wouldn't be so strange if Tina had a couple of things to work on, and so on, which only served to end the conversation.

So why is this important? Because it is so clear that your best chance to get better is to get help early, have aggressive and effective treatment, and get on with your life.  If you are 45 it probably means there was nothing close to effective treatment when you were young. If your illness didn't get better through caring, family, eating and fortune, you are likely very ill now. But there is still help for many. If you are younger, or know someone who is, get yourself or them into treatment now. Don't expect anyone to just figure it out. The thoughts, feelings and behaviors are too deeply set. Don't wait to see what will happen. The odds are high that what will happen is getting worse, not getting better. There is effective treatment now. You can get better.  Now I have to go follow up with Tina.

Next week: Why don't all therapists use effective treatment?

Contributions by Sarah Emerman