Posts Tagged “Anorexia”

By Lucene Wisniewski, PhD

Without effective treatment, eating disorders can be chronic and life-threatening. Therefore as patients, we should be well-informed consumers of the treatment we receive. In fact, being armed with accurate information about what constitutes best practices in treatment could be the difference between life and death.

A recent article on Cleveland.com reports on varsity volleyball player Veronica Gehring who was diagnosed with anorexia during her junior season. It began with an obsession to “become faster on the court and a stronger volleyball player,” she said.

Re-posted from Cleveland Center for Eating Disorders (CCED) blog archives. CCED and The Emily Program partnered in 2014.

An interesting article from the Journal of Adolescent Health was recently profiled in the New York Times. This article challenges traditional methodologies for inpatient re-feeding of teenagers with anorexia nervosa. Historically, the protocol for teens hospitalized for anorexia has been to “start low and go slow” with food. However, this often results in much slower weight gain or even lack of weight gain during the first week of hospitalization and may result in a teen being discharged from the hospital at a significantly lower weight than they would have been if they had been re-fed more aggressively. As we know from other literature, not reaching prior growth curves is thought to be the single greatest factor in relapse for anorexia and hospitalization is often utilized to jump-start this vital and necessary weight gain.