ED Bites

The eating disorder community loves personal narratives (especially of celebrities). Generally, the research and advocacy community prefers narratives of people who are well–or at least on their way to wellness. Some of this preference is strategic- sturm und drang stories don’t generally achieve donations or the message of hope that family and friends are looking [...]

In March, I attended the London International Eating Disorders Conference. This past weekend, I finally organized the last of my papers from the conference (After the conference, I was on vacation and then at a journalism fellowship, so I wasn’t home to do any organizing, hence the long delay) and found some notes I took [...]

Asking for help for an eating disorder, whether it’s for yourself or a loved one, often requires you so screw your courage to the sticking place. For one, there’s stigma. For another, there’s the fear of stopping ED behaviors and of what treatment will bring. Not to mention the other worries associated with discussing some [...]

Given that there are really no evidence-based treatments for adults with anorexia, researchers, clinicians, patients, and families are all eager to try and find something that will help this group of sufferers. One promising new therapy is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT (pronounced like the word “act,” as opposed to saying it like A-C-T). [...]

So we’ve finally come to the last part of the Defining Recovery series, in which I want to look at what happens to women after recovery. Stopping ED behaviors is, in a sense, a means to an end, which is the creation of a healthy, meaningful life. There’s no real way to get at what [...]

In the first two blog posts of this series, I’ve looked at how researchers define recovery, and how patients do so. Now, I want to look at what factors predict recovery in eating disorders. But first, a note. When I talk about things that predict a negative outcome, it’s possible that you might recognize some [...]

Yesterday, I posted about how researchers define recovery in a variety of clinical situations. I think we have made a lot of progress in our understanding of what recovery is from a scientific perspective. Researchers are now embracing the idea that recovery involves much more than just regaining/maintaining weight and stopping ED behaviors. Certainly that’s [...]

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I’m going to be doing a series on my blog about definitions of recovery, what they are, and why they matter. For my first post, I’m going to start by discussing how researchers measure recovery. Considering that most of my readers are (judging by the email I receive [...]