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Helping The Helper: Helping a Friend Get Eating Disorder Residential Treatment

Dos and Don’ts

Do:
Talk with the person when there is plenty of privacy and time for them to talk.
Express your concerns, but don’t become confrontational.
Be prepared to listen without being overly anxious to get your point across.
Focus on the symptoms or signs you believe indicate an eating disorder.
Focus the conversation on your concern for them. That you may believe that he has a problem with eating, body image, or weight management.
Express your concer about his or her health and well being.
Let them know that you feel that they may need professional evaluation by someone who understands eating
disorders.
Research and be prepared to explain some of the local eating disorder facility available on eating disorders.
Approach a qualified professional eating disorder inpatient treatment (physician, nurse, counselor) if the person seems to escalate his eating problem to the point that you are scared for them, examples include:
Binging and purging during the day
Passing out or having chest pains
Complaints of severe stomach pains and/or vomiting blood
Voicing suicidal thoughts
Don’t:
Don’t judge or threaten the person.
Don’t be confrontational or label them as sick or crazy.
Don’t try to coach them on weight loss, exercising, or appearance.
Don’t try to diagnose or treat them.
Don’t allow the conversation to become a contest of wills. State the things you see as problems, express your concern and let them know that they may need to have an evaluation. If the conversation comes to a wall or becomes too emotional, end it until anther time.
Don’t promise to keep your observations about their eating problem a secret.
Don’t try to monitor their eating habits or try to get them to eat or not eat.
Don’t set limits on how much time you can give to the person.
Dont wast time pondering the existence of eating disorders, focus on treatment, lifestyle and health.

Helping Students With Eating Problems
Prepared by: Dr. William Kernan, EdD, MPA, CHES
Columbia University Medical Center

Advice for Friends/Helpers
Remember that she (or he) has the food problem, and it is up to them to find inpatient eating disorder treatment
Make a pact of complete honesty.
Be patient, sympathetic, non-judgmental, and a good listener. Let her know that you
care and have her best interests at heart.
Accept that recovery is a process and does not happen quickly. Help her to be
patient, as well.
Do not be controlling of her life; you are limited in what you can do to help. You may
need to learn about letting go
When her behavior affects you, express yourself without placing guilt or blame upon
her. Try not to take her actions personally. Use “I” messages, explaining your
feelings and concerns. You may need to disengage from her to take care of
yourself.
Have compassion. Your loved one may be overwhelmed as she gets in touch with
the painful issues underlying the behavior. She will need your love and support at
these times more than ever.
Always remind yourself that your loved one uses their eating disorder as a
substitute for confronting painful feelings or experiences. Ask what, if anything, you
can do to help. Encourage her to find healthier ways to deal with her pain.
Do not try to guess what she wants. Encourage her to express her needs. If you
have questions, ask.
Encourage her to enter an eating disorder facility, keeping in mind that no single
approach to recovery works for everyone. Be available for joint counseling. Be
flexible and open in supporting her to do whatever approaches she chooses. For
example, you may know someone who goes into treatment centers for eating disorders, but your loved one might relate better to another.

From Bulimia: A Guide to Recovery
by Lindsey Hall and Leigh Cohn
Helping Students With Eating Problems
Prepared by: Dr. William Kernan, EdD, MPA, CHES
Columbia University Medical Center

Approaching Someone You Care About

Here are some things you should think about when approaching someone about
youre your concern that they may be suffering with an Eating Disorder.

Be gentle and caring, and be prepared to listen without offering mounds of advice.
You are not the person’s therapist, nor should you pretend to be.
Being a good listener means your ears are open and your mouth is shut, you are
not intervening with “yeah, I know what you mean, that happened to me once
when….” – just listen.

More things to keep in mind

If they then finish talking and ask what your thoughts or opinions are about eating disorder treatment facilities, be honest and caring.
Don’t make the person feel threatened.
It is not your job to dictate what they should and shouldn’t do. If this person has
finally decided to talk to you and trust you, cherish it and uphold your role in
holding their confidence.
Be encouraging. The recovery road can be a long and uphill battle, with pitfalls and
setbacks. Don’t be disappointed or disapproving when a victims displays signs of
falling back, just encourage them to continue pushing forward and get into eating disorders clinics.
Recovery is not only hard work, but can be very confusing and painful, be sure to
remind them that you understand this, and that “you cannot always continue to
stride forward without a stumble from time to time. It’s okay.”
Read as much as you can on the topic of Eating Disorders and eating disorder treatment programs. The more you know, the more equipped you will be to offer a helping hand. Photocopy or print out articles of interest and if time presents itself share the info with your loved one, but do not overstep your boundaries.
If the person has asked you not to do certain things, or talk about things, then
respect their wishes.
Do not talk about food and weight! Don’t continuously ask what the person has
or hasn’t eaten, how much weight they have lost, or how great or bad they look after
gaining or losing. This is rude and threatening and you cannot win either way.
Saying they look “healthy since you’ve put on some weight” is heard as “you are
fat,” and expressing disappointment or concern in weight loss comes across as
“you’re a failure” or “you’re a burden.” By the same token, don’t be afraid to talk in
front of the person about your own day to day living (such as, “yeah, Fred and I
went out for dinner last night and the steak was so good.”) Your stumbling to avoid
topics will be as noticed as your persistence in discussing them.
Don’t watch the person “like a hawk” when they are eating, or give looks when they
excuse themselves from a meal or from the table. Recovery is not easy and does
not happen overnight! Be respectful and courteous and do not try to be The Food
Police.
If your loved one is looking for recovery resources eating disorder clinics in your area try not to let him get discouraged. Unfortunately, there are doctors and therapists out there that do not know what they are doing, or who do not recognize Eating Disorders as the serious issue they are.

Helping Students With Eating Problems
Prepared by: Dr. William Kernan, EdD, MPA, CHES
Columbia University Medical Center

Even more things to keep in mind

Be supportive. If you feel it’s within your boundaries, offer to help – find names of
local support groups and therapists, and offer to go with them their first time if they’d
like the company. If they are getting discouraged be patient, supportive and don’t
push.
Recovery is a very personal choice each victim will need to make for him or
herself.
Encourage them to find support in others who share the same experiences,
through support groups, on-line bulletin boards or chat rooms, or through larger
meetings like those of Overeaters Anonymous.
Don’t pretend to understand, if you have never had an Eating Disorder yourself…. it
will sound condescending and ingenuine.
You can be supportive without living with Anorexia, Bulimia or Compulsive
Overeating yourself, and your loved-one will appreciate that more than you putting
on a facade of empathy.
Some final things to keep in mind
The victims of Eating Disorders can do better in their own recovery with a good
support network behind them… consider it this way — don’t we all do better in life
when we know we have people we can count on?
Learn to be a good listener and what “being there” for someone truly means.

Helping Students With Eating Problems
Prepared by: Dr. William Kernan, EdD, MPA, CHES
Columbia University Medical Center

Do I Contribute to Another’s Eating Disorder?

The culture of disordered eating is pervasive in our society. The following are ways we might encourage eating disorders without even knowing.

Praising or glorifying anothers appearance based on body size or attractiveness.
Complementing someone when they lose weight or diet.
Encouraging someone to lose weight.
Talking negatively about our bodies.
Discussing measurements, weights or clothing sizes.
Thinking of foods as good or bad.
Making fun of another persons eating habits or food choices.
Criticizing our own eating.
Considering a persons weight important.
Saying someone is healthy or well because they are thin.
Expecting perfection.
Pushing more exercise than necessary.
Assuming that an overweight person wants or needs to lose weight.
Allowing the media to dictate what body type is in.

Eating Disorders – Media Influence on Body Image

I ran across this article while researchingbulimiaandeating disorder treatments. It says everything that I want to say about the media and its influence on young women and the obsession to have the “perfect body”. I wish I could reach out to those suffering fromeating disordersand just convince them not to buy into the images they see on TV or magazines. The only reason those images are out there is to convince people to spend money. If fat was the “in” fashion, there would be tons of images and infomercials trying to convince the public that they are not fat enough and their “miracle” program will put on the pounds and make them beautiful.

Bulimia

It is devastating that young girls and women still put so much emphasis on how their bodies compare to that of models and celebrities. My mother recently remarked how obsessed women of her generation were with their weight, with role models like Twiggy, and how sad is it when she looks back at photos of herself when she was teenager and realised in retrospect how how beautiful her figure was with all its glorious curves. She further remarked how tragic it is that 30 years has passed and not much has changed.

Except now we seem to have an even greater prevalence of eating disorders such as bullimia and anorexia nervosa. The most prevalent reason intelligent young women ram their fingers down their throats or starve themselves near to death is because they possesss a poor self image stemming from a lack of realistic role models in the fashion and advertising industry. Recently I stumbled across an interview with a leading Australian fashion designer and several representatives of the advertising industry. I couldn’t help but be amused that these perpetuators of the perfect body (ie size 8 and under) still believe that they are void of any kind of moral responsibility for projecting images into society of undernourished looking women, that suggest that this waify look is the only way women can be sexy or desirable.

The interview was conducted by Ray Martin, who for those of my readers who aren’t Australian, is one of our most painful and sensationalistic journalists around, even attributing him with the title journalist is questionable. Martin seems to take great pleasure in scapegoating the minority groups in our society that have trouble defending themselves against the images his network are obsessed with depicting. Ray and his gang at “A Current Affair” appeal to the conservative tastes of some of our population. Single mothers, Aboriginals, unemployed teenagers, migrants, basically anyone who is not white, male and middle class, are regularly targeted. I’m sure you get the picture. Every country has their own version of our “Little Ray of Sunshine.”

Now this interview was set out as a informal dinner of sorts, with designer Peter Morrissey, and several high level advertising executives, representing the fashion and advertising industries, and on the other side of the fence was a size 14 model, and the editor of New Woman, who was sacked for endeavouring to use realistic sized women in her magazine. I was fascinated and somewhat amused by the attempts of Morrissey and his colleagues to justify their exclusive use of thin women. The size 14 model in fact pointed out that Morrisey and many of his designer collegues didn’t even produce clothes for size 14 women, despite the huge percentage of women that fall into this catogory. One advertising excecutive thought he could void his moral responsibility for the overwhelming lack of self-esteem amoungst women by pointing out that this years academy award winners, Helen Hunt and Kim Bassinger were incredibly slender, arguing that Hollywood also featured thin women as it’s central role models. At this point I was jumping up and down in front of the television, wishing desperately I could be at this dinner. I wanted to point out to this imbecile that, while it was true Hollywood did have more than its fair share of bordering anorexic women, a quick glance at the rest of the nominees would have identified Kate Winslet and Minnie Driver, women who don’t fit the pencil thin stereotype. So at least Hollywood does provide some alternative body types in it’s stars. The fashion industry however certainly doesn’t, and as gorgeous as this size 14 model at Ray’s dinner was, Morrissey and his collegues informed her that her body type wouldn’t sell clothes. It’s interesting how advertisers and designers love to use buzzwords like “innovative” and “revolutionary” to describe their products, its a pity they can’t apply the same buzzwords to their campaigns.

It depresses me to see Cosmopolitan’s token effort at choosing a bigger sized model for a photo shoot, with positive and negative feedback all noted in the following edition. How I long for the day when having a size 14 model in a magazine doesn’t seem like a novelty.

So I look at myself and my body type and even I can be disappointed by my occasional habit of buying into the beauty myth, sucking my little pot belly in when I try on bikinis, examining my growing cellulite, wondering if any of those new miracle cures on the market would make a difference. At Christmas I was standing in my uncle’s bedroom and he remarked on how rounded my belly had got, self-consciously I sucked it in and he reprimanded me, saying he thought it was beautiful that it was good for women to have a little bit of belly. I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to take that as a compliment.

These kind of attitudes that I occasionally entertain are part of my driving force for working on yOni, because I know that if I, as an educated, confident and self aware individual, can buy into the bullshit, how hard must it be for those younger girls who haven’t my years of self awareness and acceptance on their side.

Unfortunately some women spend their whole lives obsessing about their weight, and the physical and emotional damage that you can inflict on yourself can have some devastating effects. One such physical effect of that very popular eating disorder bulimia is the unrepairable damage bulimia can have on your teeth.

To start at the beginning of the story, when I was 15 my best friend came to live with my family, and suddenly decided one day that we wanted to be bulimic, (very mature) we were both unhappy with our weight, (foolishly so, we both had beautiful bodies) and decided we didn’t want to give up eating (goddess forbid), so we would do the next best thing, every time we ate something fattening we would go upstairs to the bathroom and throw it up. Of course this isn’t the true definition of bulimia, a true bulimic eats obsessively and constantly throws everything up. Nevertheless vomiting up our food became an addition to our teenage lives. This vomiting became almost like a game to us, we even confided in my younger sister, who in horror would come and bang on the door in tears every time either of us would go to the toilet and order us to stop throwing up. Eventually my friend grew weary of the game and realised how stupid it was, and I agreed it was stupid and we went on to find another adventure to amuse ourselves. But I never told her that I hadn’t decided I would give it up and continued to do it in private on and off for at least three years. Not regularly, just whenever I had eaten a lot of junk food.

I can still remember the two things that turned me off vomiting up my food and made me stop. One day I read about the damaging effects of stomach acid on teeth, and how vomiting could cause them to decay. I also read that throwing up all the time could make you infertile. I have since found out that the infertile story is incorrect, but today after visiting my new dentist I’ve realised that the damage stomach acid has on your teeth is irriversible. For years I have had extensive work done on my teeth, every single one of my back teeth, upper and lower, have fillings in them. I wouldn’t go to the dentist for two years and then find out I needed eight fillings. I was unlucky enough to have a really bad dentist from the age of 12 to 21, who never actually sat down with me and discussed the reasons behind this, he just patched me up, told me to stop eating so much sugar and sent me on my way. But today a new dentist examined me and was horrified to see how much decay I had, and how many fillings I had at the age of 23. She ran a few tests and determined that it wasn’t anything to do with my diet or how I brush my teeth, she said I had serious decay in places that it was extremely difficult to get in. She then asked me if I had ever had any extensive illness that might cause me to vomit, and I told her about my bulimia adventures, and she decided that was probably the most likely cause.

Thankfully she didn’t lecture me, instead laid out a plan to prevent any further decay. So here I am wondering how I am going to finance the thousands of dollars worth of dental work I am going to need, and wishing, oh so fervently, that I hadn’t been so obsessed with my weight as a teenager and trying to solve my insecurity by vomiting up all my food.

So Maidens if any of you arebulimicor thinking about venturing in that direction, please take heed of my bad experiences and remember that women are beautiful in all shapes and sizes, and no matter what any stupid ad or magazine tells you, you are gorgeous because you are a woman and if you have curves that is just a reinforcement of your womanliness. You only have to look at Renaissance paintings to see that definitions of beauty are inconstant, and if you can individually assess for yourself what is beautiful then that is much more useful than some silly overpaid unenlightened clothes designer’s definition of beauty.

For further information on the myths behind modern day constructions of beauty I highly recommend Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth.

By Salona

http://www.yoni.com/maidenf/bulemia.shtml

The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) is the biggest non-profit organization in the United States and works to prevent eating disorders as also to provide referrals to patients suffering from anorexia, bulimia as well as binge eating disorders and, also people who are taken up with body image and issues pertaining to weight.

The goal of the National Eating Disorders Association is to eliminate eating disorders and to achieve this, the National Eating Disorders Association has dedicated itself to expanding the public understanding of eating disorders as well as taking preventive measures and promoting access to quality treatment for those who have been afflicted with eating disorders as well as providing support to families through education, advocacy as well as research.

The National Eating Disorders Association tries to serve the needs of the national community through programs that it provides, as well as products and services that are of superior quality in supporting the elimination of eating disorders. To make the mission become more fruitful and productive it has developed prevention programs for a great many different audiences, and has published and distributed educational materials in addition to operating the country’s first toll-free helpline for eating disorders information as well as referral.

The National Eating Disorders Association consists of numerous professionals who form the Board of Directors as well as the Founders and staff, who together channels their collective efforts to eliminate eating disorders. The National Eating Disorders Sssociation is able to provide all the information and help necessary for those having eating disorders including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorders as well as other eating related disorders.

Usually, it is very difficult for people with eating disorders to get prompt help and be able to get on with their lives normally; so it becomes important for them to be able to reach dedicated professionals who would provide relief and for this the National Eating Disorders Association is a good source for obtaining help as well as related information.

The National Eating Disorders Association will help the person with diagnosing the symptoms of eating disorders and will find out what has caused the person to overeat excessively, and in addition, will be able to pinpoint what is going on with the patient. Once the diagnosis has been made, the treatment of the eating disorder may begin and this may also involve psychotherapy.

In order to prevent and/or screen the patient’s eating disorders the National Eating Disorders Association may prescribe ten things that the parents of the patient may have to do to prevent eating disorders.

Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are two of the most serious eating disorders. It was seen that those who are affected by anorexia are having the obsession that they are fat, they permanently want to become thinner, even if they are underweight.

Bulimia is dealing with cycles of binge eating, followed by behavior to prevent weight gain. It was seen that some persons have a mixture of symptoms and sometimes, bulimia nervosa occurs after anorexia nervosa.

It is very important that those affected by these illnesses to search for medical help, the doctor will give them advices and help them to defeat the disease.

It is known that women, especially adolescent girls are affected by these illnesses, and about 5% of people with anorexia are men. It was also seen that 2% of teenage girls and young women have bulimia, and 1% have anorexia.

Science has not established yet the exact causes that lead to an eating disorder but it is thought that in many cases a distressing event can be a factor to it.

People with anorexia have a distorted perception of body weight or shape, they think are fat even if the truth is they are underweight, they develop a permanent fear of weight gain, and are too scraggy for their age and height.

They are also having some behaviors in order to control weight, like over-exercising, restricting food, vomiting, misuse of laxatives, diuretics or diet pills. It was also seen that it is possible to appear a loss of monthly periods in women, and in girls delay in starting them.

People with bulimia, in order to prevent weight- gain, are using methods like self-induced vomiting, fasting, misuse of laxatives, diuretics, diet pills and are doing excessive exercise. Those people are feeling out of control when bingeing, but after that they feel guilty, and although they are experiencing frequent changes in weight, we can say their weight is normal or a little above normal.

Anorexia and bulimia could be caused by some factors, like the psychological, social and emotional effects. We can include here family conflict, guilt, deceptions, depression, mood swings, social isolation. It was seen that the risk of suicide increases in persons having an eating disorder.

Physical problems that appear due to these disorders are growth of fine downy hair over the face and body, constipation, difficulty in thinking clearly, swollen salivary glands, osteoporosis, anemia, impaired kidney function, dehydration, abnormal heart rhythm and other.

It is important that these illnesses to be recognized in early stages, because in that way it will be easier to prevent long-term problems. The treatment can include counseling, dietary education for healthy eating, and if the patient is dealing with severe depression, some medication will be given. Sometimes medication is helpful in people with bulimia too. It was seen that early detection and treatment gives the best results.

For more resources about girls with anorexia please review this page http://www.anorexia-center.com/signs-of-anorexia.htm, or even http://www.anorexia-center.com/anorexia-tips.htm