Help Your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder

Because they’ve been ill, they feel they are behind, less well prepared, and perhaps will never achieve what they hope to. Helping a child get back to school requires, in part, accepting the idea that some of this concern is okay.

Traits such as perfectionism, obsessionality, anxiety, feeding behaviors, and negative mood states, which are associated with eating disorders, may also be heritable and thereby constitute particular vulnerability for developing eating problems.

make sure you have support, both from other family members and friends and from professionals, because this is going to be difficult at times.

An important aspect of fighting an eating disorder is establishing consequences for not eating, as discussed later

Still, by encouraging these activities, you will be able to help your child see you as controlling only her eating behaviors and not interfering as much with other age-appropriate activities.

The thinking of

This would temporarily relieve the anxiety and stress she felt about eating and gaining weight.

Some of the very things you may value in your child now stand in the way of your being able to help her.

(Not surprisingly, those whose thoughts about eating and weight are still distorted even after their weight is normalized usually have a poorer prognosis than those whose thought processes improve along with their weight.)