Eating disorders are among the most dangerous mental health problems in the West.
They are also among the most difficult diseases to treat, requiring delicate treatment and careful management to prevent patients from relapsing or developing other related conditions.
Successful treatment of eating disorders requires equipping the patient with a wide range of tools to help them manage their emotions, stabilize their self-image, and replace habitual responses with more positive behaviors.
Eating disorders can arise from different sources. This could include a need for control or an inaccurate and negative self-image. It is often associated with high anxiety.
How can a patient trying to overcome his eating disorder learn to deal with the negative emotions that trigger him?
Current treatment of eating disorders protocols emphasize education and gentle support to help the patient better understand their body’s needs and see these needs as something to honor and provide, rather than control and rob.
When therapists equip their patients with tools for fitness, nutrition, and self-care, patients benefit in many important ways, and their recovery and emotional well-being can benefit greatly.
How fitness benefits people suffering from eating disorders
To see positive results from exercise, patients quickly learn that their bodies need fuel.
Athletic performance can provide patients with an important link between their diet and their performance. Skipping a meal or depriving their body in extreme ways can have a measurable impact on their performance.
Instead of seeing their body simply as something to be controlled, they begin to see it as a facet of biological reality, and food as fuel becomes a necessary part of that reality.
While it is important to manage athletic efforts to prevent unhealthy binge eating and purging cycles from developing, fitness goals can be a crucial link in the chain of treatment choices that can ultimately lead to management and recovery.
How therapists can promote good nutrition for patients with eating disorders
Educating patients about their body’s essential needs is another important step in the process of helping patients with eating disorders achieve a healthy relationship with food.
Every body needs essential inputs, and helping patients recognize the real consequences of forgoing these essential inputs can reframe the purpose of food.
Once again a balanced approach is required. But the fact remains that when patients become aware of their body’s needs and the very real ways in which these needs impact their health and well-being, they are much more motivated to achieve balance in their consumption.
Self-care: being kind to yourself
As patients let go of their poor self-image and gain a healthier view of their own bodies, they sometimes need new behaviors to replace the old coping mechanisms of control and deprivation.
An important step in this process is arranging moments of grounding, calm and positivity through self-care.
When treatments for eating disorders include these three essential components of emotional well-being, patients emerge with a more centered, balanced, and real view of themselves.
