Special Topics
One By One
When it became clear to me that I would need to stop all Ed-based behaviors and replace them with healthy recovery based ones, I felt overwhelmed. My habits were mine! They had helped guide me and keep me safe, right? No! None of my negative behaviors were improving my life, but I knew it would be difficult to stop them all at once. Talk about stress, pressure, anxiety, and fear!
Anorexia: Causes, Symptoms and Treatment
Anorexia Nervosa involves an extreme obsession with limiting food intake and weight that can end up taking over a person's life. It is defined as a perceived intense need to drastically limit food intake to produce weight loss.
Food Freedom
I was with some friends and their kids this weekend and we were cooking and making various types of food. I love being with friends and seeing their recipes. When the cooking was done we all sat down to eat, including my friends toddler. My friend sat her daughter in her high chair and we all began to eat all the food that we cooked. Her little daughter was taking bite after bite and saying “yummy”, “more”, “good”! She was enjoying every bite of food that went in her mouth. Everyone was so free and having a special time and enjoying wonderful, delicious food and making special memories.
5 Ways to Love the Skin You’re In
Confidence is key in living life to the fullest, and these are my five ways to love the skin you’re in.
Has Your Appetite Gone Wild?
You might have thought appetite could be conquered through willpower and discipline, but science is now revealing that it is not so simple. Disordered eating results from complex interactions between genetics, hormones, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, stress and personal habits. Moreover, the processes in the brain that perpetuate disordered eating are outside our conscious control.
Common Health Problems When Recovering from Eating Disorders and Type 1 Diabetes
When I first started eating disorder treatment in 2008, I had an idea of what it would be like: I would go see a therapist for a month or so, they would tell me what was wrong with me, instruct me on how to fix it, and I would magically stop using eating disorder symptoms. I expected I would be done with treatment in a month or two.
Are You Addicted to Food? 7 Questions to Ask Yourself
Psychiatry determines whether a person is dependent on alcohol or another drug by asking patients seven basic questions. These questions are based on The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the standard reference used by psychiatrists around the world for diagnosing and categorizing mental and emotional problems. The DSM establishes criteria related to tolerance, withdrawal, difficulty controlling use, desire to cut down, and specific negative consequences. It defines a person substance-dependent if he or she answers YES to three or more of the seven questions. Here I have adapted these questions to focus specifically on food.
Getting Off The Food Rollercoaster
Historically, our relationship with food has rested on the balance of our need to eat and the availability of food: the biological imperative to eat—hunger, and the physical ability to satisfy that imperative. The interplay between hunger and being satisfied is “appetite.”
Is Appetite Genetic?
Thanks to individual genetic makeup, each person is anatomically and biochemically unique, with his or her own way of responding to the environment. This uniqueness frames the way that each of us perceives and interacts with the world. For instance, when a family sits down to enjoy dinner, each member actually tastes a different dinner because of the unique distribution of taste receptors in the tongue.
Letter to Parents During Treatment: Encountering Obstacles
As a parent of a child who successfully went through treatment for an eating disorder, I understand the challenges and frustrations you may experience all too well. My daughter was highly resistant and we encountered many obstacles during treatment. What I will tell you, should offer you hope.