Do you suspect you teenager is struggling with an eating disorder? Eating disorders are illnesses which cause serious disturbances to a person’s daily diet and include eating extremely small or large amounts of food.
Sadly this is becoming more common with the rise of social media platforms and peer pressure to fit in.
Individuals with an eating disorder may have started out eating unreasonably large or small portions, but at some point, the urge to eat less or more spiraled out of control. Severe distress or concern about body weight or shape may also characterize an eating disorder.
-Is your teen changing their eating habits?
-Are they spending a lot of time in the bathroom, especially after meals?
-Have they become a picky eater, when they used to eat most everything?
Eating disorders frequently appear during teen years, but may also develop during childhood or later in life.
Common eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. Binge-eating is classified as an Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, or EDNOS. EDNOS is the most common diagnosis among people who seek treatment.
Eating disorders are real, treatable medical illnesses. They frequently coexist with other illnesses such as depression, substance abuse, or anxiety disorders. Other symptoms can become life-threatening if a person does not receive treatment. People with anorexia nervosa are 18 times more likely to die early compared with people of similar age in the general population.
Types of eating disorders
Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that causes the person to severely restrict what they eat or drink. A teen with anorexia is often underweight, but continues to feel overweight or “fat.” There is often a great fear of gaining any weight, despite the fact that the person is underweight.
Some people with anorexia nervosa may also engage in binge-eating followed by extreme dieting, excessive exercise, self-induced vomiting, and/or misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas.
Some who have anorexia nervosa recover with treatment after only one episode. Others get well but have relapses. Still others have a more chronic, or long-lasting, form of anorexia nervosa, in which their health declines as they battle the illness.
Bulimia nervosa
Bulimia nervosa is characterized by recurrent and frequent episodes of eating unusually large amounts of food and feeling a lack of control over these episodes. This binge-eating is followed by behavior that compensates for the overeating such as forced vomiting, excessive use of laxatives or diuretics, fasting, excessive exercise, or a combination of these behaviors.
Unlike anorexia nervosa, people with bulimia nervosa usually maintain what is considered a healthy or normal weight, while some are slightly overweight. Like people with anorexia nervosa, they often fear gaining weight, want desperately to lose weight, and are intensely unhappy with their body size and shape.
Usually, bulimic behavior is done secretly because it is often accompanied by feelings of disgust or shame. The binge-eating and purging cycle happens anywhere from several times a week to many times a day.
Binge-eating disorder
With binge-eating disorder, a person loses control over his or her eating. Unlike bulimia nervosa, periods of binge-eating are not followed by purging, excessive exercise, or fasting. As a result, people with binge-eating disorder often are overweight or obese.
People with binge-eating disorder who are obese are at higher risk for developing cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure. They also experience guilt, shame, and distress about their binge-eating, which can lead to more binge-eating.
How are eating disorders treated?
Adequate nutrition, reducing excessive exercise, and stopping purging behaviors are the foundations of treatment. Specific forms of psychotherapy, or talk therapy, and medication are effective for many eating disorders.
However, in more chronic cases, specific treatments have not yet been identified. Treatment plans often are tailored to individual needs and may include one or more of the following:
- Individual, group, and/or family psychotherapy
- Medical care and monitoring
- Nutritional counseling
- Medications
Some patients may also need to be hospitalized to treat problems caused by malnutrition or to ensure they eat enough if they are very underweight.
Read: Where to Send Your Troubled Teenager.
Read: Goals of Residential Treatment.
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If you believe your teen is struggling with an eating disorder and you’ve exhausted your local resources, contact us to learn more about how residential treatment might be able to help your family.
Sources: National Institute of Mental Health
