Err on the Side of Caution…

… I always say, especially when it comes to ED’s and medication- specifically anitdepressants and children/adolescents. 

It’s a call that I personally feel many clinicians make way too early before steady gains in weight, and full nutrition have been sufficiently addressed, and this takes time.  As parents, we see a significant change in mood with increased nutrition, as well as the opposite when our children are not eating enough or metabolizing properly during refeeding and recovery. 

Of course this will be an intimately personal and individualized decision, and antidepressants, without a doubt, have helped countless numbers of inividuals from seemingly endless and needless suffering. 

And you would want to have a physician who would have all the up to date, accurate, and forthright information in helping you make the best decision possible for your child, but after reading Dr Turner’s published report/study as well as the New England Journal of Medicine’s abstract about “selective reporting and clinical trials”, and “efficacy overstated for antidepressants” I’m convinced it’s vital to continue scrutinizing, as well as reseaching the use of antidepressants within the treatment of ED’s; and question why some clincians seem a tad overzealous to prescribe them.

And as some counterbalance, not completely overlooking how antidepressants have assisted many, CEO David Shern of Mental Health America shared a brief response.

Nuggets Become Boulders for Change

The news of UNC’s study has been bustling about, but it’s worth posting this fine gem of a quote from senior author and director of UNC’s Eating Disorders Program, Dr Cynthia Bulik: “even a nugget of accurate biological information can influence how health care professionals preceive the illness” -and similarly can change the perceptions of others as well.

Nuggets of Information- Boulders of Truth… “POW!”

Why Family Meals Matter

Most of us realize how vitally important our meals with our loved ones are when they are suffeing from an eating disorder, and that they are not always an easy affair, especially when the eating disorder is unbearably strong and entrenched while healing through recovery.  

Those ‘family meals’ are also jeopardized by rushed schedules, overworked and exhausted parents, and seemingly less and less of those maintained moments when we can gather together, even with the simplest but nutritious of food prepartions to share, rekindle and reconnect. 

Food sustains us and nourishes us in so many ways- and as Laura Collins always reminds us: FOOD IS MEDICINE- distinctly so when your child suffers from an eating disorder.

Recently Dr Dianne Neumark-Sztainer from the University of Minnesota co-authored a longitudinal study on “the potential role of family meals as a protective factor against disorderd eating behaviors“ which may be the first published investigation of its kind examining the benefits and implications of family meals from their ongoing (love this) Project EAT  research study.

I think this is empowering news since there are still lingering and erroneous views that parents, and even worse, that the sufferer are to blame or caused the eating disorder.  Studies such as these also provide additional support and consideration into looking more closely at the benefits of Family-Based or Maudsley Method treatments for eating disorders and realign what we all know intuively heals a malnourished body and mind.