Treatment
Treatment goals for eating disorders include:
- Restore normal weight for anorexia nervosa
- Reduce, and hopefully stop, binge eating and purging for bulimia nervosa
- Treat physical complications and any associated psychiatric disorders
- Teach patients proper nutritional habits and how to develop healthy eating patterns and meal plans
- Change patients’ dysfunctional thoughts about the eating disorder
- Improve self-control, self-esteem, and behavior
- Provide family counseling
- Prevent relapse
A multidisciplinary team approach with consistent support and counseling is essential for long-term recovery. Depending on the severity and type of eating disorder, team members may include:
- Doctors specializing in relevant medical complications
- Dietitians and nutritional counselors
- Cognitive-behavioral therapists, family therapists, or other psychotherapists
All should be experienced in treating eating disorders.
General Treatment Approaches
Eating disorders are nearly always treated with some form of psychiatric or psychologic treatment, often tied in with nutritional counseling. Depending on the disorder and the individual patient, certain psychologic approaches may work better than others.
Nutritional rehabilitation counseling is essential for recovery. It can help patients develop structured meal plans and healthy eating and weight management. In anorexia nervosa, family-based therapies that involve the parent’s assistance in feeding their adolescent child have proven to be very helpful.
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Review Date: 02/18/2011
Reviewed By: David B. Merrill, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry,
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New
York, NY. Also reviewed by Harvey Simon, MD, Editor-in-Chief,
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Physician,
Massachusetts General Hospital; and David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical
Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.
A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org)
