What’s Eating Your Child // Eating Disorders // Part 3: Action
Part 3 of 3
With treatment, people with eating disorders have a good chance at recovering. About 80 percent of people with eating disorders who seek treatment either recover completely or make significant progress.
The resources that we do have now for help have not always been around. I’ve personally talked with older individuals in treatment that shared their experiences with their eating disorder before treatment was available. Many of them talked about close friends that had eating disorders while growing up that they had during this time that had died, due to lack of treatment and understanding. They also shared how beneficial treatment has been to their recovery.
For me, there were plenty of times that treatment was all that was keeping me alive. It became a place that I know I can go to when I can’t handle myself anymore, when I have no life left in me. But getting to that point doesn’t happen overnight, and I know getting treatment before getting to that point is helpful. Whether it’s impacting your life through school, work, close relationships, or it’s completely controlling your life, it can always be helpful.
An eating disorder can be somewhat of an addiction; the behaviors that you do, the more you do them, it can become virtually impossible to stop doing these things. One misconception is that when you stop starving, or binging, or purging, that you don’t have eating disorder. This is not true, as you can still have the same thoughts and urges. It is true, though, that the less you do these actions, the more you can function in your day to day life, and the better chance you have of recovery.
That’s why, f you know someone who’s struggling with an eating disorder untreated, it should be treated now. Because success is higher the earlier the disorder is treated.
It can be hard to find treatment options that take your insurance or work on a sliding scale, but this is a useful website that can help you find treatment options:
But, there are still ways to prevent people who are predisposed to eating disorders from developing them.
A large part of what needs to be done to prevent and treat eating disorders is probably up to the media and lawmakers, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be prevented and treated.
The views culture has on mental illness has improved, and it’s improved by people. The majority of the improvement isn’t by the media, and it isn’t due to laws. Your day to day actions can influence everyone in your life.
Compliment your children based on who they are; not simply how “thick” or “thin” they are, but how “strong” and “healthy” they are. You can teach the children in your life what those words mean relative to to their internal strength, and you can teach them to take care of their body by teaching them to care about it.
A recent study found that “Parents-Only Therapy May Be Optimal in Treating Anorexia” suggesting more that parents can play a significant role. A treatment involving the parents taking therapy to learn how to help their child, rather than have their child seek help. That finding can prove just the more, and can be hopeful information for parents who’re starting to see warning signs. You can play a big factor in keeping the healthy.
Keep yourself informed. When you hear people downplay mental illness, don’t ignore it. Inform them.
Here are some links for more detailed information:
