Viewing blog posts categorized under "Anorexia Nervosa"

The canny ability of eating disorders to twist even the most kindly meant words is something that is experienced by almost all our patients. We originally published this post back in the summer of 2011 and have decided to share it again because an awareness of of this facet of ED is so valuable to patients, families and care providers at every stage of recovery.

I find myself explaining this many times to parents and friends of our patients: there is a secret language to eating…

One of the challenges of swimming against the stream -- as when, for example, one insists that parents don’t cause eating disorders when many providers learn and believe otherwise -- is that you become a bit of a pariah. At a minimum, people will prefer to talk to those of their colleagues who think as they do.

So building a web of safety around our patients once they leave the immediacy of Kartini Clinic has been a challenge. What are the needs of our young patients once they leave…

When you practice as long as I have in the field of childhood eating disorders, one thing becomes abundantly clear: there are cycles to the frequency with which patients appear on our doorstep for treatment -- and on the doorsteps of all the other treatment centers as well. The trouble is, it has proven difficult to understand the peaks and troughs of these cycles and correlate them to much of anything. But there do seem to be a few tentatively recognizable patterns. And these peaks…

Setting a goal weight is not simple. And it is never harder than in a growing child, where it is a moving target.

I have written some rather lengthy guidelines for determining ideal body weight in the pediatric patient and about what we at Kartini Clinic call “state not weight.” Today, we use the term “goal weight” rather than “ideal body weight” as “ideal” has so much baggage.

Professor Bryan Lask once asked me to participate in a debate in an international journal about whether…

Everyone in our field knows that the Holiday season provides special challenges to those with eating disorders, be those restricting, bingeing and purging or predominantly bingeing eating disorders.  Add to this the fact that this is typically a very important time of year to children and you have, well, a mess. It’s over in January though, and that’s the good news!

What makes it a mess? Holidays raise expectations in everyone, expectations that even for adults are often not met and…

Possibly nothing has changed so much over the last ten years as the acceptance of parents’ role in the treatment of children and adolescents with eating disorders.

When I founded Kartini Clinic in 1998, “dysfunctional” parents were widely considered to cause eating disorders in general and anorexia nervosa in particular.  Toxic and enmeshed mothers were commonly cited by therapists, doctors and lay people as the common denominator in these illnesses.  In fact, eating disorders were…

Almost anyone who works in a specialized field (such as pediatric eating disorders) spends a great deal of time thinking about diagnostic criteria for diseases and conditions.  This is true throughout medicine and psychiatry, of course:  is it type 1 or type 2 diabetes?  Is it autism or pervasive developmental disorder?  Is it bulimia nervosa or binge purge anorexia nervosa? Is it eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS, a term no longer included in DSM-5) or anorexia nervosa?… Read More

Last week I was pleased to discuss a paper by Walt Kaye and colleagues that I felt strongly supported ordered eating for people with anorexia nervosa.  Ordered eating on our Kartini meal plan has always been the cornerstone of our weight restoration strategy for children and young adults who suffer from this condition. It works and Dr Kaye’s research tells us why.

This week I would like to refer you to a blog written by Cindy Bulik of the University of North Carolina. Cindy is a…