Parents: An Essential Part Of Eating Disorder Treatment

Posted on June 29, 2022June 28, 2022 by Alison Pelz, LD, RD, CDE, LCSW

To all the parents out there: you are an important part of your child’s eating disorder treatment team! This is true even if your child is no longer a child, but a young adult or an adult. Even if you don’t live with your child, you have an important role to play in eating disorder recovery.

Why are parents + caregivers so important in eating disorder recovery?

Therapists, doctors, and dietitians are must-haves on any eating disorder treatment team. But parents have an important role to play too! Here are a few reasons why parents are important in the recovery process:

You spend much more time with your child than the treatment team does. As a therapist, I may spend one to two hours a week with your kiddo, you spend dozens of hours!
You are usually involved in feeding or making sure that your teen is fed.
You have a relationship with them. They trust and love you. If you are a parent of a teen, I know it may not always feel like it, but it is true!
You know your child better than anyone else!

Where do eating disorders come from?

Eating disorders are thought to function as a way to cope with uncomfortable feelings. Feeling distressing emotions is, well, distressing. Eating disorders often develop as a coping mechanism to avoid feeling those painful feelings. It’s possible to learn new ways to cope to manage those distressing feelings.

As a parent, you can learn tools to help your child manage their feelings without using the eating disorder to cope.

When you hear this you may feel like a deer caught in the headlights.

You may be thinking, “Yeah right! I can’t even get through a conversation with my teen without it turning into a fight.”
Or maybe you’re thinking, “I can’t get them to say more than a few words to me.”
You may even be throwing your arms up in exasperation because your kiddo is in total denial of their eating disorder.

If your child has an eating disorder, you may be feeling a range of emotions all of which are okay. You might feel anger, worry, sadness, resentment, disbelief, panic, and hopelessness, to name a few. And you may be feeling no way equipped to help your child recover from an eating disorder, but you are wrong.

Historically, parents weren’t always involved, and at times even discouraged to participate, in the treatment of eating disorders. In recent years, we are learning that parents can be a really powerful tool in their kid’s recovery process. This holds true not just for eating disorders, but for all mental health conditions. Parents have an important role to play!

Parents often blame themselves or feel responsible for their child’s eating disorder.

I haven’t met a parent or loved one who doesn’t want what is best for their loved one – to be happy and live a productive, healthy life.

Let me be clear: you are not to blame for your child’s eating disorder.

Eating disorders are complex. They develop for a variety of different reasons including social, biological, and psychological factors. For example, did you know that being a girl or a history of dieting are risk factors for developing an eating disorder?

As an eating disorder therapist + dietitian, I encourage parents to focus less on why their child has an eating disorder, and more on eliminating the eating disorder.

For example, if your child developed cancer you would spend less thought on why she got it, but more on getting her good treatment.

While you are not to blame for your child’s eating disorder, you certainly can be part of the treatment and solution. Often, parents don’t feel equipped to help their children recover. Parenting is hard, and parenting a teen with an eating disorder has a unique set of challenges.

You are right you may not have the eating disorder knowledge (yet!) to help. But, you do have a special connection and bond with your child that is so powerful in the treatment of eating disorders.

Some parents report that their kids don’t want help for their eating disorder, or even that they are in denial about their eating disorder. Certainly, this feels like it is true, but it is not.

Remember eating disorders are a way for your child to cope with discomfort. Yep that’s right – just like their lovey or security blanket that they had as a kiddo! The disorder is serving a purpose, even if it’s not a healthy way to cope. Since the disorder is filling a need, it might seem like on the surface, your child doesn’t want to acknowledge or deal with it. However, living with an eating disorder can be a miserable existence. Your child deserves better!

Now that I have (hopefully) convinced you that you are an important part of your teens recovery, you may be asking yourself how do I help my teen?

Here are a few tips to get you started.

Get educated about eating disorders. Here are specific resources for parents.
Make sure that your teen has a complete treatment team.
Verbalize to your teen that while you don’t have all the answers, eating disorders are serious mental health conditions, treatment is needed, and that you are going to be there every step of the way to support them.

Are you looking for more ways to support your child as they navigate eating disorder recovery? Please feel free to book a free 15 minute phone call with me to learn how to better support your teen as they navigate an eating disorder.

5 Ways Journaling Can Help in Eating Disorder Recovery

Posted on February 16, 2022February 15, 2022 by Alison Pelz, LD, RD, CDE, LCSW

What do Oprah Winfrey, Freda Kahlo, Marie Curie, and Anne Frank all have in common? (Besides being exceptional women, that is.)

They all journaled.

When you read about why these incredible women kept a diary, building a strong connection with one’s emotions and thoughts is the theme that comes up.

People who suffer from eating disorders often really struggle to identify and cope with their emotions and thoughts. (And not just people with eating disorders, lots of people struggle to connect with what they’re feeling and why!) Often the eating disorder then becomes the way to cope with those emotions, unhealthy as it may be.

Having a strong journaling practice doesn’t mean that your eating disorder will just evaporate on its own. But keeping a journal is a tool that can help you in your journey in recovery, and support your work in therapy. If you don’t have a therapist or treatment team click here to learn more.

Journaling can help:

Rid unhelpful, repetitive thoughts swarming around in your head.

Simply writing thoughts down sometimes can provide a reduction of these thoughts. The more we hold onto or try to bury our feelings, the stronger they usually become–and the more it feels like they can start to control us. When you take time to get the thoughts out in some way, your mind is able to release them, instead of clinging onto them.

Identify your fears and worries.

Many people who have eating disorders often experience high levels of anxiety. Journaling can assist in identifying those fears and worries in order to evaluate if they are actually reflective of the truth. Learning to identify when our fear those fears are “real” can help both your problem solving skills and your ability to tolerate some levels of anxiety.

Increase a sense of control by reflecting and processing thoughts and feelings.

Giving yourself a space to review and reflect on what you’re feeling without judgement can help take the power out of those strong feelings. Instead of feeling like they are controlling you, learning to reflect & process them helps to teach you that your feelings are trying to communicate something to you, but they don’t have to dictate your life.

Explore and sort out your emotions.

Identifying, understanding and communicating emotions can be hard, especially for those with eating disorders. Often people with eating disorders use eating disorder behaviors to cope with their emotions. Journaling is a tool that can instead help you to navigate your emotions, so you don’t have to rely on your eating disorder to manage them.

Reduce avoidance of problems & stress.

While avoiding problems and stress may seem helpful particularly in the short-term, in the long-term it actually increases feelings of stress, discomfort, and fear. For example, if you are anticipating a tough conversation with someone the longer you put the conversation off the more stressful it becomes. Usually, once the conversation is completed there is a sense of relief. Merely writing about the anticipated conversation is a great first step to reducing avoidance. Eating disorder behaviors often serve as a way to avoid stress and discomfort, so developing a healthy practice to manage stress can help reduce reliance on those behaviors, as well as strengthen your stress management skills in the long term.

Tips to Get Your Journaling Practice Started

Journaling can be downright daunting–especially if you are not used to talking about emotions. But think of journaling as a practice, something that you may feel “not good at” at the beginning, but over time you will become more confident.

Make it part of your daily routine like brushing your teeth. Perhaps journal at around the same time or point in your day. Maybe start off with journaling five minutes a day and increase the length of time as needed or as your confidence builds around journaling.

What to Journal About:

There is no “right way or wrong way” to journal. The point of the journal is to get your thoughts and feelings out on paper. No need for perfect grammar, spelling, or handwriting.

You may start by writing about your day (what you did, thought, and any feelings that came up), or a particular situation that you felt strongly about–whether it was a good or bad feeling.

It may be handy to keep a list of feeling such as this one next to your journal. This can be a good tool to increase your emotional vocabulary, strengthen your ability to identify what you’re feeling, and really understand your emotions.

If you don’t know where to get started with your journaling practice, try one of these journal prompts:

3-5 things you are most grateful and why.
One thing you felt proud about today.
Something you recently did that was hard and how you manage it.
A stressful situation and how you can cope with it.
A letter to a future self.
What do you feel most worried about and why.
What others would say to you about why they care for you.
Eating disorder-specific:
Name 5 ways your eating disorder is helpful and 5 ways that your eating disorder is unhelpful.
If I didn’t have my eating disorder then I would be doing these five things.
If I didn’t have my eating disorder then I would feel these 5 things.
I would want my friends and/or family to know about my eating disorder ar these things.

If you are looking for more ways to support yourself in your journey of eating disorder recovery, talking to a therapist may help. Please call for a free 15-minute phone consultation to learn how I work with clients with eating disorders and loved ones.

2021: A Year In Review

Posted on December 15, 2021December 14, 2021 by Crowncreatives

What a year! 2021 was our second year in a pandemic, and seemed just as chaotic and challenging as 2020 was. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back for making it to the end of this year, it certainly hasn’t been easy, but I’m so glad you’re here. This too shall pass, and until it does, I’ll be here to support you virtually to stop feeling out of control and gain a sense of calm in relationship with food and your body

This year, more than ever, people experienced anxiety and burnout. If you’re feeling like you’re running on empty, you’re not alone. I hope you get some quality time to rest and recuperate this season. It’s always important to rest, but with the constant chaos of existence right now you might be feeling the need to slow down more than ever. I encourage you to lean into it!

You’re allowed to have periods of rest, and it’s important to listen to your body when it’s trying to tell you something. Consider this your permission slip to do nothing but self-care for the rest of the year!

Every year, I like to round up all of my blog posts from the year in one place. It’s fun to look back on the year through these posts, and I hope you find them useful as you work toward peace with food.

Here’s what I wrote about this year:

5 Reasons not to Diet in 2021 (or Ever)

“Unless you are taking a break from social media and the news, you most likely have been bombarded with messages about dieting and weight related New Year’s resolutions. Diet programs are promising the magic bullet for good health and weight loss in the New Year.

Maybe this year you are re-thinking your New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps you are beginning to notice that dieting is taking up too much space in your life or you are tired of worrying about what you eat or what you look like. It could be you are looking to “get off the diet roller coaster” permanently and heal your relationship with food and your body.

If you are ready to give up dieting, you’re not alone. Consider these five reasons to quit dieting for good.”

Anorexia Nervosa: One Size Does NOT Fit All

“Unfortunately, there are many incorrect assumptions associated with eating disorders. One I see a lot is the assumption that in order to have an eating disorder, particularly anorexia nervosa, one has to have very low body weight. This is simply not true.

Sadly these assumptions block those suffering from eating disorders from getting the life-saving treatment they need. In fact, most people with eating disorders don’t necessarily fit neatly into an eating disorder category.

Eating disorders are more about how the person relates to food, exercise, and body than what a person looks like.”

The Body Image-Eating Disorder Connection

“How we perceive our bodies is influenced by many factors, including family, friends, media, gender identity, culture, and the health-care system, to name a few. Body image is not static. It may change depending on our mood, situation, stage of life, or the season.

The majority of those who suffer with eating disorders have a negative body image. One of the key features of eating disorders is the overvaluation of weight, shape, and eating habits on self-worth.

Self-worth is how and what we think about ourselves. In other words, those who struggle with eating disorders equate much of their self-worth with their ability to control their weight, shape, and eating habits. Having a negative body image often keeps the eating disorder going.”

Maintaining Eating Disorder Recovery as a College Freshman

“College can be a difficult transition for anyone, but if you’re in recovery for an eating disorder, it can be a particularly stressful transition!

Some of the challenges of maintaining your recovery while returning to school include change in routine, increased demands and independence, and exercise/diet culture.

Remember: it’s normal for eating disorder symptoms to recur in times of high stress and periods of transition. But by taking time to consider how your recovery will be impacted in this period of transition, you can create a plan to cope with stress and continue with your recovery.”

Why You Should Try Body Acceptance Over Body Positivity

“The idea of body positivity has its roots in fighting diet culture, but the term doesn’t resonate with everyone. After all, feeling positive about your body is a tall order for a lot of people.

First of all, there is a multi-billion dollar diet industry that uses its considerable resources and influence to convince us all that there is something wrong with our bodies. Feeling insecure about how our bodies look is a surefire way to get us to buy products that will “fix” us. However, consider the idea that there was nothing wrong with your body in the first place.

People who are chronically ill or disabled might not feel like they can be positive about a body that is constantly in pain or not able to move through the world easily. People who are recovering from eating disorders might not trust their body’s cues or might feel distress when thinking about their bodies.

Body acceptance might feel like a more attainable goal than body positivity.”

4 Tips for Anyone Who Loves an Adult in Eating Disorder Recovery

“It’s possible for eating disorders to initially develop later in life, not just during adolescence. It’s also possible that adults suffering from an eating disorder developed it during adolescence and never fully recovered. Life stressors (like a pandemic, for example!) later in life can also cause a relapse of eating disorders.

Eating disorders develop for a variety of reasons including genetics, temperament, gender, and dieting history to name a few.

It is less important why and how the eating disorder developed, and more important to focus on supporting your loved one in their eating disorder recovery.”

I’ll be back in 2022, writing more about ED recovery, food peace, and weight bias. If there are any topics you want me to cover next year, let me know. You can send me a message here, and you can also follow me on Facebook. Every week, I share resources from myself + other eating disorder experts, so follow if you’re looking for more information.

4 Tips for Anyone Who Loves an Adult in Eating Disorder Recovery

Posted on November 10, 2021November 9, 2021 by Alison Pelz, LD, RD, CDE, LCSW

When you hear the words “eating disorder” what comes to mind? More often than not, eating disorders are associated with teenage girls. While it is true eating disorders often develop in adolescence, adults can have eating disorders, too.

It’s possible for eating disorders to initially develop later in life, not just during adolescence. It’s also possible that adults suffering from an eating disorder developed it during adolescence and never fully recovered. Life stressors (like a pandemic, for example!) later in life can also cause a relapse of eating disorders.

Eating disorders develop for a variety of reasons including genetics, temperament, gender, and dieting history to name a few.

It is less important why and how the eating disorder developed, and more important to focus on supporting your loved one in their eating disorder recovery.

If you love someone in eating disorder recovery, here are four ways to show your support:

1. Think about an eating disorder like a physical illness.

An eating disorder, like cancer, is not a choice. This is often misunderstood. If it was as simple as just choosing to eat more food, far fewer people would suffer with eating disorders.

If your loved one was going through treatment for cancer you may do some of the following: learn about their diagnosis, take them to treatment appointments, provide support, and check-in with them more frequently.

You can do the same with eating disorders. Eating disorders are dangerous and can cause long-term health effects and even death, and they should be taken seriously. See what you can do to understand that eating disorders (EDs) are a physical as well as mental illness.

2. Get educated on eating disorders.

Learning as much as you can about eating disorders is another way to support a loved one in recovery. Eating disorders on the surface appear to be about food. But, make no mistake, while food issues are part of the eating disorder, eating disorders are psychiatric illnesses that must be treated by experienced clinicians. Here are some resources to learn more about eating disorders:

The National Association of Eating Disorders
The Eating Disorder Sourcebook by Carolyn Costin
Eight Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder by Carolyn Costin and Gwen Schubert Grabb
Skills-based Learning for Caring for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder by Janet Treasure, Grainne Smith and Anna Crane

You can also ask your loved one if they would like for you to attend treatment appointments with them so you can get a better understanding of their treatment plan and goals.

There are also resources on social media sites like Instagram that offer helpful information about eating disorders, diet culture, and recovery. Make sure to check that the information you’re getting is coming from a reliable source – there are lots of folks out there who borrow language from body positive and anti-diet circles but who are still pushing intentional weight loss or food restriction. It can be really eye-opening to learn about the root causes of eating disorders, in addition to being a great way to support someone you love with an eating disorder.

3. Learn how to communicate with your loved one in a supportive way.

As with most things, supporting someone in eating disorder recovery requires communication. The best way to find out how to support them is to ask! Ask them directly what would make them feel supported or what they’re struggling with. Find out what they would find helpful or for ways you can provide support (or adjust your support if necessary).

It can be tricky to communicate about such emotionally charged topics. Statements such as these can feel supportive to your loved one.

“I know this is hard.”
“You can do hard things.”
“I am here if you would like to talk about it.”

There are a lot of ways to be supportive, but some statements aren’t helpful for folks in ED recovery. Unhelpful statements that you may be tempted to say (remember the ED is not only about the food)

“Just eat.”
“I don’t know why this is so hard…do what I do [insert advice about food, exercise].”

Remember, eating disorders are not just about the food. Everyone’s body is different, and most of us aren’t qualified to give out medical or nutritional advice anyway – we can leave that to the folks on the treatment team.

Another thing to keep in mind is that mealtime can be particularly stressful for those with eating disorders. Some meals and foods may be easier or harder for your loved one to eat. If you eat with your loved one at mealtime it may be helpful to focus on light conversations that have nothing to do with their eating disorder.

4. Be patient.

Eating disorder recovery is a marathon, not a sprint. Recovery is not linear, in fact, it can get quite messy. It requires lots of learning and unlearning, as well as patience and self-compassion.

Don’t give up, and keep checking in with your loved one. Get support for yourself if you need a space where you can process the emotions of supporting someone through recovery. It’s okay to recognize that supporting someone sometimes means asking for help yourself. The National Alliance for Eating Disorders has free support groups for loved ones.

If you are looking for more ways to support your loved one in eating disorder recovery, talking to a therapist may help. Please call for a free 15-minute phone consultation to learn how I work with clients with eating disorders and loved ones.

Maintaining Eating Disorder Recovery as a College Freshman

Posted on September 8, 2021September 7, 2021 by Alison Pelz, LD, RD, CDE, LCSW

College can be a difficult transition for anyone, but if you’re in recovery for an eating disorder, it can be a particularly stressful transition!

Some of the challenges of maintaining your recovery while returning to school include:

Change in Routine

When in recovery, changes in routine can be tough. Routines allow for some comfort and dependability, because when we have them, we know what to expect. Routines also have very practical uses in recovery–they affect meal planning, treatment appointments, sleeping habits, etc. All of which play a role in recovery! Navigating a new routine can be challenging, and can feel overwhelming, so giving care and consideration to what your new routine will be is important.

Increased Demands + Independence

Going to college is an exciting time because it is the first taste of independence so many of us have! However, gaining independence is also a lot of responsibility–especially if we’re not used to it. It can be easy to not set any boundaries for yourself, but that’s not a sustainable way to take care of yourself. At the same time, you’ll also need to use some of that newfound independence to balance the demands of your school work, which might be more intense than you’re used to. It can be extremely stressful navigating that responsibility for the first time, and increased stress can lead to an increase in eating disorder symptoms.

Exercise + Diet Culture

On a college campus you’ll be surrounded by other young people, who are also surrounded by the constant messaging on social media about diet and beauty standards. Additionally, gyms on campus may be full of college level athletes training in ways that other folks who don’t need intense conditioning for a sport shouldn’t be pushing themselves to compete with. You might be surrounded by fear of the “freshman fifteen” or feel pressure to skip meals to study for exams with other students. The culture around food and exercise on a college campus may not be the healthiest one–and it’s important to prepare for that with a counselor beforehand so you have coping mechanisms you can use when need be.

What can you do to maintain your recovery?

Consider your schedule

Be gentle with yourself as you adjust! College is a big change and you don’t need to try to do it all at once. This means, don’t push yourself to take too many classes your first semester while you’re still getting used to the new expectations. Really think about what your limit is before you feel yourself burning out.

Consider also taking classes that you wouldn’t consider as the most challenging. It’s a whole new style of learning in college, there’s nothing wrong with taking it slow to figure out what you can handle. That way you’re not overworking yourself and you are reducing the amount of stress you might experience.

When thinking about your schedule, consider any habits you have that are helpful to your recovery (social meals, treatment appointments, etc.) and what will be needed for those in your regular routines.

Make a recovery plan before you go

Are you working with a therapist right now? Will you continue to work with them? Or will there be someone on campus to connect with? Have group supports been part of your recovery plan? What is available in terms of group support at your school? Does your current therapist have plans or ideas on what will be important to your recovery at school?

Be sure to set up any regular appointments and checkups with your treatment team ahead of time, to help provide you the professional support you may need to stay “on track.”

Are you working with a dietitian right now? Work with them to help you maintain recovery.

You might want research on what mealtimes are like at school. Consider questions like: What food is available when? Where are the places to eat? What are their hours? Do you know what food do they provide? What are the meal plans like? Is there one that is more conducive to your recovery? Together with your dietitian it might be helpful to gather some information about what the different meal plans are, and make some pros and cons for each of them.

If you don’t have a treatment team, go to the student health center on campus and they will be able to assist you.

If you need help in your eating disorder recovery or not sure if you have an eating disorder or not, please click here to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation with me.

Diet Culture, COVID-19, and Weight Stigma: 2020 in Review

Posted on December 16, 2020December 15, 2020 by Alison Pelz, LD, RD, CDE, LCSW

At the end of every year, I like to put together a post that collects everything I’ve published on my blog over the last year. And what a year it’s been. This year is nothing like we imagined it would be. We have lost almost a year of being with family and friends, experiencing new things, and living our ‘normal’ lives. If you’re feeling grief about this year, the lives lost and changed, and what could have been, you’re not alone.

This year has been hard, sad, lonely, scary, weird, and pretty much any other adjective out there. It can be hard to hold space for all of those things at once, so be gentle with yourself as you work through your feelings about 2020.

Here’s what I wrote about this year:

This year, I wrote a lot about the COVID-19 pandemic and how that interacts with folks in eating disorder recovery.

When things get hard, communities thrive. The eating disorder recovery community is more important than ever with many of us isolated and unable to connect with other ED survivors in real life. I wrote about 5 Ways to Stay on Track With Eating Disorder Recovery During COVID-19, Virtual (and Free) Eating Disorder Support Groups During COVID-19, and Coping With COVID-19 and Eating Disorder Recovery: Tips for College Students.

Rejecting Diet culture

One of my favorite ways to learn about rejecting the diet mentality is through podcasts! I put together a list of my top podcasts to help you break free from diet culture. (I also included a tip for how to find anti-diet resources: “It’s easy to be wary of what you find related to body positivity and anti-diet resources, since the movement has been flooded with people trying to cash in without spreading the actual message of the anti-diet movement. When looking for a trusted resource online, make sure that they mention on their website (hopefully prominently!) that they believe in dismantling diet culture, center larger bodies, and don’t mention weight loss anywhere on their site.”

Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are a complicated subject. One of my goals is to help people challenged with ED and other food & weight-related concerns to move from constantly worrying about food and their weight to being free to create the lives they want. The first step here is understanding what eating disorders actually are. To help, I discussed 3 Important FAQs about Binge Eating Disorder on the blog. While some of us understand the basics of eating disorders and anxiety on our own, it’s rare to see a blog post connect the two and tell you what you need to know if you’re living with an eating disorder and an anxiety disorder. I wrote about frequently asked questions related to eating disorders and anxiety to share what I know!

Weight Bias + Stigma

Weight bias is everywhere we look in our culture. It’s led to systematic discrimination of larger bodies in many areas of life – medical care, job opportunities, social interactions, to name a few. So many folks railing against people in larger bodies don’t realize that what really causes negative health outcomes is a result of stigma, not a result of having a larger body, so I wrote about how weight bias and stigma are the real hazards to health, not body size.

If there are any topics you’d like me to cover in 2021, let me know! You can message me here. If you’re looking for even more resources, make sure you’re following me on Facebook and Pinterest!Every week, I share resources from myself + other experts in the field on both platforms!