Dr. O'Toole's Blog

That light we can see at the end of this long, dim tunnel is the lantern of hope.  Sound corny?  It wouldn’t if you had been afraid to go to sleep at night for fear that your eating disordered child would stop breathing….

Dear Kartini Families -

Although most of us would agree that classes on health and fitness can be fun and informative for many kids, they can be stressful for some and positively destructive for others.

I have been silent here on my blog over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday, traditionally a hard time for our patients.

Christmas and Hanukkah, with all of the candies and sweets and comments about weight and failed diets, can be a challenge for our patients—although I have been impressed with how calm it was this year.

I just read a parent’s thread on Laura Collin’s FEAST website called “Eating Too Much”. It made my hair stand on end. And it clearly resonated with more than one parent on the FEAST site.

It is the old story of a weight restored child with anorexia nervosa continuing to eat a lot and moving up way past their weight goal. Both the child and the parent are panicking.

By Julie K. O'Toole MD, MPH

I have decided occasionally to write about topics that may be of more interest to practicing physicians and other providers confronted with difficult or unusual cases related to disordered eating. This is one of those topics.

Determining "ideal" body weight in children who suffer from anorexia nervosa is complex. Pediatric patients cannot be treated like “little adults”. An example of this principle is the way medication is dosed in childhood. The right dose of an antibiotic for a newborn is different than the right dose for a two year old or for a 14 year old. And so it is for setting “weight goals” in pediatric eating disorder patients.