How to Recognize & Treat Eating Disorders

Transcript Well, ‘compulsive eating disorder’, the term is not an official eating disorder diagnosis. So different people might mean different things by ‘compulsive eating disorder’. But, when I talk to patients and they talk about feeling like they have compulsive eating, I think one of the things that patients typically are referring to is a …

Transcript Is there such a thing as over eating healthy foods? The answer to that question is a definitive yes. So overeating is simply the phenomenon of eating more food than maybe you were comfortable with. And when I’m working with patients in my private practice or up at the eating disorders clinic at Columbia …

Transcript So, the number one step that I would say is crucial to overcoming compulsive eating problems is to get help from somebody. Get help from a professional that knows compulsive eating and its origins and possible treatment. So, that could be working with a mental health professional, it could be working with a nutritionist, …

Transcript The best way to get eating addiction help is to try to contact a treatment center that has expertise in handling eating problems or to see an individual practitioner and individual mental health professional that has experience working with eating problems. Realize, as I might have mentioned in some other videos in this series, …

Transcript Hi, my name is Dr. Allegra Broft. I’m a psychiatrist here in New York City, and I sort of wear two hats. Part of my time is spent as a clinical researcher with the Columbia Center for Eating Disorders where I have the good fortune to be able to help conduct research in these …

Transcript One of the things we know about side effects of severe dieting is that psychological effects that can come out of severe dieting can actually look a whole lot like symptoms that we see in patients with anorexia nervosa. I’m going to tell you about a study that was conducted in the 1940’s. It …

Transcript As far as how to stop overeating there’s no one set of strategies that’s going to work for everybody. I can tell you some things to not do as an eating disorder professional that sees people that have struggled at times with overeating and then wind up in even deeper problems. Don’t do things …

Transcript The primary dangers of extreme use of diet pills is just that we don’t know, professionals don’t know in majority of cases what’s in the diet pills that one tends to buy in a health foods store or over the counter in a drug store. And, when you don’t know exactly what’s in a …

Transcript Well, sleep eating is more or less what it sounds, it’s eating that happens at or around the time of sleep. There are various types of sleep eating problems that can actually be quite disruptive for folks and are very much meriting a consultation with a physician to figure out what’s going on. Let …

Transcript Strange eating addictions is an area that a lot of people probably keep secret. And in eating disorder clinics, we often more traditionally see eating problems like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa and we’re probably still a little bit trying to find out more about some of the other types of strange eating problems …

Transcript So, if you find yourself in a problem of repetitive episodes of binge eating at night, there may be ways to get help and working with a professional that’s familiar with this type of problem is really the key critical step in getting a hold on this type of eating problem. There can be …

Transcript Well, the first thing to say about the topic of eating disorders in children is that eating disorders are actually a group of diagnoses that effect adolescents and children in general quite frequently. Actually, the average onset of an eating disorder like anorexia nervosa, for example, is around the time of puberty, or maybe …

Transcript Pica is an unusual type of eating problem. We don’t actually, officially consider it as an eating disorder diagnosis. It’s elsewhere as an official diagnosis. Pica is an unusual eating problem where kids of various ages, and actually adults can have pica as well, ingest non-nutritive substances on a repetitive basis. The different types …

Transcript The truth is that we really don’t know necessarily the causes for all types of sleep eating disorder problems. But, after a thorough evaluation with a mental health professional or a physician that knows about these types of problems, often certain predisposing factors can be identified. For example, one thing that can come out …

Transcript If you have a sleep eating disorder or problem or even just wonder if you do, maybe the type of problem is you’re really eating a large amount of your calories at night after your last meal of the day or even waking up in the middle of the night with a strong urge …

Transcript Well, let me first start off by saying that the concept of eating addiction is a concept that is actually a bit controversial; actually, quite a bit controversial, amongst eating disorder professionals. There are some eating professionals that really believe in the concept of eating addiction, and yet there are some that really think …

Transcript So if you’re watching this video you may be trying to figure out a way to stop engaging in a repetitive pattern of binge eating. And it can really be a hard thing to do completely on one’s own, so the first thing I want to say to you is try to get some …

Transcript Eating disorders in the media is a hot topic. A variety of people are often curious when they ask me about eating disorders, “Like, well, aren’t these problems that are really caused by the media?” We see all these images in magazines of thin, emaciated looking models, celebrities on TV. Then we see tabloid …

Transcript As a clinical researcher, as well as a clinician who treats folks with binge eating, I wish we knew exactly why people develop binge eating. I think, what we do know about most eating problems, is that there’s really a combination of factors; there can be some deep rooted psychological or emotional issues that …

Transcript Orthorexia nervosa is another one of these eating terms that’s not an official diagnosis, but refers to an increasingly observed phenomenon of an attention to health, very healthy eating and regular exercise that of course in many people is with the best of intentions. But for people that start to get this label of …

Transcript What most people probably mean by an eating psychology coach or for people that think maybe I need an eating psychology coach, people are probably looking for someone that can help them understand or think about the psychology that leads them to making certain choices about their eating, or when in instances where eating …

Transcript Body dysmorphic disorder is actually not really an eating disorder in the diagnostic manual widely used within psychiatry, the DSM-IV. Body dysmorphic disorder is considered what’s called a somatoform disorder, or disorders that sort of involve preoccupations with health. So, body dysmorphic disorder is where there’s sort of an unusual fixation, a recurrent fixation, …

Transcript “Eating disorder, not otherwise specified” is kind of this long, too many words term that’s kind of a catch all phrase within the Diagnostic Manual most commonly used amongst mental health professionals in the United States, the DSM IV. It’s kind of a catchall diagnosis to refer to a lot of different types of …

Transcript Diabulimia is not an official eating disorder diagnostic category. But none the less, it should be recognized because of its potential to be extremely dangerous. Diabulimia is kind of a combination of the word Diabetes and Bulimia. It refers to patients with Type One Diabetes who are supposed to be giving themselves insulin injections …

Transcript So, Rumination Disorder, or Rumination Syndrome, is an unusual type of eating problem that’s somewhat related to bulimic-type eating problems where a person spontaneously regurgitates part of what they’ve eaten in the course of a meal or a snack. The food spontaneously regurgitates into the mouth and the person with Rumination Syndrome then, either …

Transcript If you’re wondering what is the best adolescent eating disorder treatment option, on the one hand there’s no one treatment option for adolescents, or for anyone, that works perfectly well for everybody. On the other hand we do have some good scientific clinical research in eating disorders that does give some support to certain …

Transcript If you’re looking for eating disorders help online or elsewhere congratulations for doing the first step that is really essential to getting to the bottom of the eating disorder problem and making your way towards recovery, so yay for that. These are very serious illnesses, and one should not delay in trying to access …

Transcript The good news is that there really are a variety of types of eating disorder treatment options, and of course treatment options vary depending on the specific type of eating disorder that a person is struggling with. Treatment can look like anything from anything like what you might typically imagine – outpatient meeting with …

Transcript There’s really a diversity of eating disorder help groups around. Lots of different formats, run by lots of different types of professionals. Some may not be run by professionals, at all, but may be a group of patients, or recovered patients, that are supporting each other through recovery. There are types of groups, formalized …

Transcript If you’re watching this video on how to get eating disorders help, you’re actually probably already doing a very potentially helpful step in trying to get yourself to eating disorder help, which is that you’re looking on the internet trying to find treatment resources. The internet can be one terrific tool for trying to …

Transcript Figuring out how to intervene with someone, a loved one, family member, or friend that has an eating disorder can be no easy task and there’s no right or wrong formula for exactly how best to go about it. Intervening with someone who has an eating disorder can in some cases as simple as …

Transcript So, I may have mentioned elsewhere in this video series how to find one’s way to eating disorder clinics. There can be lots of ways to do this. A simple Google search can be one way, but often times people like to have specific guidelines that are a little more specific than random searches …

Transcript So if you’re looking for rehab for disorders, the first thing worth mentioning is you might find that not all disorder treatment centers call themselves rehab. Although some might, rehab is a term that we here used a lot that the addiction world uses to call their types of treatment centers, but there a …

Transcript Well, eating psychology is, I guess in a way, pretty much like how the term sounds. It’s the psychological factors that go into our eating decisions and our eating choices on a daily basis. Some of us don’t even realize that there is an eating psychology. Isn’t eating just about making three meals a …

Transcript So there’s no one treatment for Bulimia nervosa that’s right for everyone. But the good news about Bulimia nervosa treatment is that we do actually have good clinical studies that have evidence of good effect of both certain types of psychotherapies as well as certain types of medications for treatment of Bulimia nervosa. While …

Transcript Purging disorder treatment is definitely out there, although in some cases, because it’s still a sort of newer diagnosis not recognized as an official diagnosis, maybe in some ways it may be a little harder to find than treatment for anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, which are very well recognized diagnoses and there are …

Transcript Well, like with other eating problems, the most important thing I can say about recovering from Bulimia Nervosa, the number one tip for recovering from Bulimina Nervosa, is to try to get help from somebody experienced with dealing with these types of eating problems. Sometimes that means an individual counselor, a therapist, sometimes that …

Transcript So the side affects of Purging disorder are similar to the sides of effects from eating problems where purging is prominent like Bulimia nervosa. Purging, typically in the form of vomiting, possibly also laxative abuse, diet pill use, and other ways of compensating for ingestion of calories can be loaded with side affects. So …

Transcript Fortunately there are some very good treatments for bulimia nervosa, and I’ll tell you about some of those in a second, but as with other types of eating problems, the most important first step is to try to find your way into some type of treatment, usually by consultation with a treatment center that …

Transcript So what is Purging disorder? First thing to know Purging disorder is not currently recognized as an official diagnosis within psychiatry. So, for example, in the diagnostic manual for mental health disorders, the DSM, the manual that a lot of mental health professionals use in the United States, Purging disorder is not listed as …

Transcript I think my number one, two, three and four eating disorder recovery tip is to get yourself into treatment. Work with a professional that you can trust, or maybe it needs to be at a treatment center, but find yourself in a setting where there are people that you get a sense understand the …

Transcript So it can perplexing to have a friend or a family member that you think might be struggling with an eating problem, like, Bulimia nervosa and to think about how to help them. I guess one of the things that you might be first wondering about is, like, is there actually something on? Does …

Transcript So, symptoms of anorexia in men, in many respects are not that much different than the symptoms you see in women. So, the cardinal features of Anorexia nervosa are a relentless pursuit of thinness, a refusal or an inability to maintain a minimally medically appropriate body weight in association with an extreme fear of …

Transcript As far as the most common eating disorders; I guess I’ll first mention that really there are three official eating disorder diagnoses that are sort of officially recognized within the mental health community. So that means there are three eating disorder diagnoses that are listed in the diagnostic manual of psychiatry and mental health …

Transcript So Pro-Ana is a term that is used to describe a community in general mediated online through websites, maybe through certain types of chat rooms or social media sites that basically serve as sort of a support community for kind of perpetuating Anorexia and anorexic tendencies. So these are actually sites that glorify Anorexia …

Transcript Watching a friend or a loved one struggle with Anorexia nervosa can make a person feel extremely helpless. And it can really be extremely hard to know how best to approach that friend or loved one and be able to do anything or say anything that’s going to be experienced as constructive. And there’s …

Transcript I guess in simple terms disordered eating is just that. Eating that’s problematic. And that could really mean a variety of different things. So, some people ask the question, “I have disordered eating. Does that mean I have an eating disorder?” And the answer to that question is no or at least not necessarily. …

Transcript Symptoms of anorexia in children can sometimes be a little bit confusing or it can be difficult to see if there are symptoms of anorexia in a child with this type of problem. A child with anorexia can’t necessarily tell you, “Oh, mom or dad, I feel conflicted about my body,” for example. They …

Transcript I’m going to tell you about kind of the key features of Anorexia nervosa. Actually, what I’m going to tell you are the four diagnostic criteria that are currently in the diagnostic manual used by the majority of mental health providers in the United States, and used by psychiatrists. That’s the manual called the …

Transcript I wish that the answer to the question, how to overcome Anorexia could actually be summarized in a short video on the topic. I actually wish that we as mental health treatment providers had a surefire answer as to how to overcome Anorexia. The first thing to say about Anorexia nervosa for those of …