Learning that your teen has an eating disorder is baffling and deeply troubling news for parents. Our instincts are to protect and try to help our children out of the morass, but for decades, families were kept out of the treatment loop for teens with conditions like anorexia and bulimia.
The team at the Comprehensive Eating Disorders Program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, led by psychiatrist James Lock, MD, PhD, is integrating the family into helping teens overcome their eating disorders. Lock recently sat down with the Stanford Medicine Newsletter for an informative Q&A about teen eating disorders. He spoke about the historic reasoning for cutting parents out of treatment plans:
For most of the early 20th century, parents were erroneously blamed for mental illnesses in their offspring: So-called refrigerator mothers (those lacking warmth) caused autism, and overcontrolling parents caused anorexia nervosa, experts claimed. These ideas about causation are without foundation.
Research at Stanford and elsewhere has shown that parents can play a big role in helping their teens recover from eating disorders. For example, we have demonstrated that a specific family-based therapy is twice as effective as individual psychotherapy for treating anorexia nervosa.
And what to watch for in teens:
Warning signs include changes in eating patterns, skipping meals, increased driven exercise or discussion about weight, avoidance of desirable but calorically dense foods, refusing to eat with the family, vomiting, large amounts of food missing from the refrigerator and increased irritability and emotionality. If a parent sees these signs, it would be a good idea to make an appointment for an evaluation and consultation.
The full Q&A is worth a read.
Previously: Families can help their teens recover from anorexia, new study shows, A growing consensus for revamping anorexia nervosa treatment, Possible predictors of longer-term recovery from eating disorders, What a teenager wishes her parents knew about eating disorders and Research links bulimia to disordered impulse control
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