The family as an agent of change

I found a great article on family-based treatment in Forbes magazine called Teens With Eating Disorders Benefit From Parents' Help. That the title of the article isn't patently obvious to, you know, pretty much everyone is both surprising and sadly expected. However, the exposure of FBT in such places as Forbes online, where it can reach people who might not be specifically looking for information on eating disorders, is pretty fantastic.

A few of the most savory tidbits:

"We know now that eating disorders are real illnesses, not lifestyle choices," Olivio Bermudez said. And parents can play a crucial role in recovery, Bermudez and others now believe. In fact, researchers found that teens were more able to control their disordered eating when they had family support.

"The therapist works with the family to empower the family to get the [anorectic] child to eat the meals and recover the weight," Bermudez said. "The family becomes the agent of change."

The article ends with a series of "suggestions" for parents, although one of them left me cringing a little bit, as parents are instructed to "follow the directions" of the treatment team. I would have love to have seen this rephrased as "parents are part of the treatment team," and that they should certainly listen to the treatment professionals, but all clinicians are not created equal.

Still, it's a solid article about FBT.

In the next day or so, I have a few more research-oriented articles for you, so hold onto your seats.

FBT: Two case studies

I found two case studies of success with Family-Based Treatment (Maudsley) that was published in the Mayo Clinic research journal.

You can read the pdf here: Family Based Therapy for Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa

On a personal note, what I found especially illustrative were the charts of the weights of the teens (one girl, one boy) on pages 3 and 4.

I intend to compile some of these links and post them in the right-hand column. I'll be working on this, and a longer article on dopamine, over the next week.

Introduction

Hello everyone!

I am delighted and honored to be asked by Laura Collins to blog about eating disorders research for FEAST. I am not the parent of someone with an eating disorder- rather, I am the sufferer herself. One who is on her way to recovery with the help of her parents and a modified Maudsley approach.

I am also a science writer by profession. I have written two books on eating disorders: a memoir, Running on Empty, and a self-help book for teens and their parents called Next to Nothing. I have a Master's of Public Health in epidemiology from the University of Michigan, and I recently graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an MA in science writing (master's degrees- collect them all!).

I have written a variety of freelance pieces for such magazines as the Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine, ScienceNOW, Eating Disorders Today, and the Etsy Storque. I currently work at Chemical and Engineering News as an editorial intern. After that, who knows.

Besides that, I also have a blog on eating disorders called ED Bites. Though I do blog about research there, it's not always my focus, and nor is my audience parents. There will likely be some cross-posting between the two blogs, especially if I think an article is generally useful.

If you have any questions, suggestions for articles, or comments, please email me at carrie [AT] edbites [.] com or post them in the "comments" section.

I'm very excited to work with FEAST and I hope to meet some of you at the NEDA conference in Austin this September.