Food As Medicine In Eating Disorders

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When a family is faced with a member who has an eating disorder, it can be a confusing time. Health care professionals can attribute the disorder to issues involving the parents and the atmosphere within the family. But what causes the various eating disorders can be rather complex. Above all, parents and family member need to be aware that they are not to blame, although their concern about their loved one is quite understandable. An organization, FAMILIES EMPOWERED AND SUPPORTING TREATMENT OF EATING DISORDERS (F.E.A.S.T.) provides needed support and education for parents of someone who has an eating disorder.

Unlike treatment for someone who has an addiction, treatment of eating disorders involves food/nutrition, which is one part of the illness that is out of control. Food is needed for survival; too little causes starvation, dehydration, low blood sugar level.



So, when eating disorders are treated, the person's relationship with food and health must be addressed, bringing that relationship back to normal, or balance. The longer an eating disorder persists, the harder it is to treat. In anorexia, the sensations involved with eating become shut down; but in bulimia, not eating causes the person to eat large quantities of food, raising bodily discomfort, along with guilt, then purging to rid the body of the food consumed. Some people are more vulnerable to these types of cycles; about 50-80% of the risk to develop an eating disorder has been attributed to genetics.

As time has gone by, the symptoms that are associated with eating disorders have become to be understood as deriving from malnutrition. In the 1940s, the Minnesota Semi-Starvation Study observed young, healthy men who were placed on a calorie restricted diet. They were found to display social withdrawal, food hoarding, ritualized eating behaviors, irritability, bingeing, and paranoia, similar to symptoms encountered in eating disorders. Brain function and chemistry are also thought to be changed by minor dietary deficiencies, especially during adolescence.

Recovery generally involves higher calorie counts that are nutritionally balanced. Those foods most avoided by those with eating disorders - fats, higher calorie, nutrient dense foods - are the ones that restore nutritional balance and enable weight gain. This treatment can also increase the anxiety that patients feel around the consumption of food, making the process of re-feeding more difficult. But restoring healthy nutrition is essential. Once weight returns to an appropriate level and is maintained for several months, the symptoms of the eating disorder abate and the personality changes. This process of treating the eating disorder is so essential that it is helpful to view the food provided as medicine.

F.E.A.S.T. offers support to family members of persons with eating disorders.

Before psychotherapy can be effective, proper nutrition must be restored. It is, of course, difficult for persons in treatment to benefit from therapy until brain chemistry balance and development is restored by the nutritional interventions. Just reaching the lowest target weight is not effective and is associated with poor outcome; good results are only obtained with the restoration of healthy body weight and full nutrition.

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Thanks to information from this article on F.E.A.S.T.: http://www.feast-ed.org/?page=TheRoleOfNutrition; and the above link.

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