Last week I covered how my approach to treating eating disorders differs from other treatment plans. This week I want to dive deeper into how working as a team with your MD, therapist, and family members really makes a difference in treatment.

As to other healthcare providers, you need a good MD who understands eating disorders in the event that your patient needs medication or hospitalization for medical stabilization. I do not use dieticians as they generally espouse that the patient can eat anything in moderation. That is not true. Let’s take one example. Sugar. It has been shown to be as addicting as heroin or cocaine, which makes it very difficult to eat in moderation. Also depending on the type of sugar it can be extremely dangerous for other reasons, HFCS which is genetically engineered, attacks the brain, and causes a dangerous condition called fatty liver. Unfortunately, it is found in every form of conventional processed food.

Many anorexics become addicted to sweets, when this happens a new eating disorder is born; Bulimarexia. It starts that they need the sugar for energy, but when they can’t control the amount of sugar they have to restrict other foods even more or they are forced to purge the extra calories. The reason I espouse “Clean eating” is that it heals the gut and brain, and it truly nourishes the body. More importantly my patients trust clean food and can embrace refeeding as a result.

Back to the anorexia mindset. It is spectacularly well focused: Eat as little as possible, lose as much as possible and lie lie lie when necessary. Treatment must be equally as well focused. With parents, physicians, and therapists working closely together, as a team, in order to prevail. Stabilize medically, mandate eating, increase quality nutrients, and slowly increase calories.

Here’s where things get tricky and other therapeutic approaches get derailed. Each part of Team Treatment has a role. The role of the therapist is one of support, education, and empathy. The therapist is on the side of the patient. The role of the parents is to mandate eating and treatment. In this scenario, do the parents have to be heavy? Yes. They have to parent. Insisting that their child eats and stays in therapy is a part of parenting. This is very hard to do and some parents struggle with being able to do it. Those who struggle are more at risk of getting sucked into putting their child in a residential or daytime treatment center where the treatment team takes on the parenting role. This is a very bad idea.

Come back next week for the secret to effective treatment and a wrap-up in this series.