Help Is Here…
Eating disorders are serious but treatable mental and physical illnesses that affect all genders, ages, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, body shapes and weights. An eating disorder is about more than a person’s relationship with food. It is a complex mental health condition that can affect your relationships, your academic or professional success, and your goals in life.
According to The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD), Eating disorders affect at least 9% of the population worldwide, with 28.8% Americans facing an eating disorder in their lifetime. 10,200 deaths occur each year as a direct result of an eating disorder - that’s one death every 52 minutes.
Are you struggling with constant or repetitive dieting? Abusing laxatives or vomiting? Displaying excessive or compulsive exercise patterns? These symptoms, along with others such as making lists of “good” or “bad” foods, making excuses to not eat meals, having obsessive situations around food preparation or eating, preoccupation with body image and/or appearance, continual denial of hunger, and others may signal the presence of an eating disorder.
Therapy for Eating disorders involves both individual and family therapy sessions, designed to help clients identify their triggers for disordered eating behaviors and explore ways to manage them. Through cognitive behavioral therapy and other evidence based approaches, clients can learn how to regulate emotions associated with eating disorders such as shame or guilt.
- It is extremely important that family members play an active role in the treatment of the eating disordered individual so that together they can learn healthy ways to communicate with each other, as well as aid in improved understanding of how food choices affect one’s physical and emotional health.
