Author: frivvy89

How can a parent get their child who has anorexia to eat? One of the symptoms of anorexia is food refusal, which can lead to screaming matches at every meal. While parents are tasked with getting enough food into their kids’ bodies, your child may be determined to not eat anything. This sets parents up for frustrating and scary fights over food. And since kids in recovery need to eat about six times per day, that’s a lot of yelling!This week I heard from a mom who is facing daily screaming matches with her teenage daughter who is in recovery…

A Visual Guide to Human Emotion Despite vast differences in culture around the world, humanity’s DNA is 99.9% similar. There are few attributes more central and universal to the human experience than our emotions. Of course, the broad spectrum of emotions we’re capable of experiencing can be difficult to articulate. That’s where this brilliant visualization by the Junto Institute comes in. This circular visualization is the latest in an ongoing attempt to neatly categorize the full range of emotions in a logical way. A Taxonomy of Human Emotion Our understanding has come a long way since William James proposed four…

Eating disorder recovery is tough, and parents and loved ones often want to send thoughtful gifts for the person who is working so hard to get better. Like any illness, it’s nice to be thought of! Here are some ideas for gifts that may be appropriate when your loved one has an eating disorder. Of course, use your best judgment considering their individual condition. In general, gifts during eating disorder recovery should not be food or food-oriented. For example, even if you find the coziest socks with donuts on them, go for the cactus or plain design instead. It may…

The National Eating Disorders Association reported a 41 percent increase in messages to its telephone and online help lines in January 2021 compared with January 2020. And in a study of about 1,000 American and Dutch people with eating disorders published last July, more than one-third of subjects reported that they were restricting their diet and increasing “compensatory behaviors,” like purging and exercise. Among the Americans, 23 percent also said they would regularly binge-eat stockpiled food.“I’m seeing more clients, and I’m getting clients who are sicker when they come to me, because we cannot get them access to a higher…

Stress eating is not a one-time phenomenon; for most of us, it happens time and again. If you’re someone who finds yourself eating every single time you’ve had a bad day, it’s time to get rid of the habit. Here’s how You wake up every morning, and decide to follow a healthy lifestyle going forward. There’s a list of all the nutritious foods you’re going to consume, an exercise plan is ready, and you’re raring to go. Unfortunately, the day turns out to be emotionally challenging. Although you manage to stick through your plan until evening, you end up binging…

Stress eating is not a one-time phenomenon; for most of us, it happens time and again. If you’re someone who finds yourself eating every single time you’ve had a bad day, it’s time to get rid of the habit. Here’s howYou wake up every morning, and decide to follow a healthy lifestyle going forward. There’s a list of all the nutritious foods you’re going to consume, an exercise plan is ready, and you’re raring to go. Unfortunately, the day turns out to be emotionally challenging. Although you manage to stick through your plan until evening, you end up binging on…

There are thousands of TED Talks on almost every topic you can imagine, but are there any that are good for eating disorder recovery?Luckily, there are! And while I don’t include some of the most obvious choices that are directly related to eating disorders, that’s largely on purpose. Talks about eating disorders can be challenging. They may perpetuate harmful stereotypes about eating disorders, instill fear in people who have eating disorders, and even trigger eating disorder beliefs and behaviors. So apart from Glennon Doyle, who mentions her recovery as part of her talk, I have not featured any specific eating…

One of Tyler Labine’s first lines as Dr. Iggy Frome on the NBC hit medical drama New Amsterdam was about food — and for the show’s first two seasons, the passionate psychiatrist was often seen eating anything from crudités to cookies. After a while, the Canadian actor, 42, approached the producers about what was seemingly being written as a quirk. “It was really triggering me,” he says. “I have disordered eating and body dysmorphia.” After several more conversations, elements of Labine’s real-life experience — including binge eating and dangerous fad dieting, a suicide attempt at age 12 and a decision…

Higher levels of the stomach-derived hormone ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, predict a greater preference for smaller immediate monetary rewards over larger delayed financial rewards, a new study finds. The study results will be presented at ENDO 2021, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting. This research presents novel evidence in humans that ghrelin, the so-called “hunger hormone,” affects monetary decision making, said co-investigator Franziska Plessow, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston. She said recent research findings in rodents suggested that ghrelin may play a part in impulsive choices and behaviors. “Our results indicate that…

November 10, 2023We live in what’s called “Diet Culture,” the belief that everyone can and should lose weight, but it’s time to fight back, and it can start at home. Diet culture is associated with worse physical and mental health outcomes, because a focus on weight loss results in weight cycling 95% of the time. Weight cycling is associated with greater weight gain, less physical activity, lower nutritional balance, and a higher prevalence of binge eating and eating disorders.As an eating disorder professional, I suggest that all parents fight diet culture at home. Why? Because diet culture tends to be…