Eating disorders are among the most dangerous mental health concerns in the West.
They are also among the most difficult to treat, requiring delicate handling and careful management to prevent patients from relapsing or from developing other, related disorders.
Successful treatment of disordered eating requires that the patient be equipped with a wide variety of tools to help them manage their emotions, stabilize their self-image and replace habitual responses with more positive behaviors.
Eating disorders can stem from a variety of sources. This may include a need for control or inaccurate and negative self image. It is often linked to high anxiety.
So how can a patient who is trying to overcome their eating disorder learn to manage the negative emotions that trigger them?
Current eating disorder treatment protocols emphasize education and gentle support to help the patient better understand their body’s needs and see those needs as something to honor and provide, rather than controlling and depriving.
When therapists equip their patients with tools of fitness, nutrition and self-care, the patients benefit in many important ways, and their recovery and emotional wellness can benefit greatly.
How Fitness Benefits Those Who Suffer From Eating Disorders
In order to see positive results from exercise, patients quickly learn that their bodies require fuel.
Athletic performance can give patients an important tether between their eating and their performance. Skipping a meal or depriving their bodies in extreme ways can have a measurable impact on their performance.
Instead of simply seeing their bodies as something to be controlled, they begin to see it as a facet of biological reality, and food as fuel becomes a necessary component of that reality.
While it is important to manage athletic endeavors to prevent unhealthy binge and purge cycles from developing, fitness goals can be a vital link in the chain of treatment choices that can ultimately lead to management and recovery.
How Therapists Can Incentivize Good Nutrition For Eating Disorder Patients
Educating patients on their bodies’ essential requirements is another important step in the process of helping eating disorder patients to achieve a healthy relationship with food.
Every body requires essential inputs, and helping patients to recognize the real consequences of withholding these vital inputs can help reframe the purpose of food.
Once again, a balanced approach is required. But the fact remains that when patients become cognizant of their body’s needs and the very real ways that these needs impact their health and wellbeing, they are much more motivated to achieve balance in their consumption.
Self Care: Being Kind To Yourself
As patients let go of their poor self image and reach a healthier view of their own bodies, they sometimes need new behaviors to replace the old coping mechanisms of control and deprivation.
One important step in this process is to arrange moments of grounding, calm and positivity through self care.
When eating disorder treatments include these three vital components of emotional wellness, the patients emerge with a more centered, balanced and real vision of themselves.