Eating Disorders - Treatment

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:

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• 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.

Medications such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants may be added to psychotherapy for bulimia, but there is limited evidence that these or other drugs have any significant effect on anorexia nervosa.

Although anorexia nervosa generally presents more treatment challenges than bulimia nervosa, long-term studies show recovery in many people treated for anorexia. Studies indicate that a majority of people with bulimia and up to half of patients with anorexia nervosa are free from eating disorders within 10 years of treatment.