Navigating insurance issues in eating disorders treatment is a complicated topic. Every treatment program has different contracts with different stipulations about what is covered and what isn’t. Even within a program like The Body Image Therapy Center, those contracts vary by location. Here are some key questions and answers that come up from clients at […]
Cultivating Body Acceptance through Mindfulness
An estimated 30 million Americans suffer from eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating, while tens of millions more are plagued by distorted images of their bodies. Those who struggle with body image and eating disorders need to find ways to move from a judgmental approach to one rooted in compassion. How can we […]
Take Control of Seasonal Depression
Does the thought of driving home from work at 5 PM in complete darkness get you down? If so, you’re not alone. You’ve probably heard about the “winter blues”—when temperatures drop and the days get shorter, we stay indoors more often, we tire more easily, and we may feel a little melancholy. But it might […]
It’s okay to take time off school to recover
School has just begun, and already we are seeing a number of clients in high school, college, and graduate school seeking eating disorder treatment at our program. Many require partial day, residential, or inpatient treatment. But our recommendations for level of care often fall flat for one reason alone, “I can’t leave school!” Here is […]
Be compassionate after a lapse with ED
Working to recover from an eating disorder is not easy, quick, or perfect. It challenges your patience, belief that recovery is worth it, and strength of your support systems. Because it is so much work, it’s common for a client to beat themselves up for a lapse back into a behavior. The trick to avoiding […]
What keeps you from getting help for binge eating disorder - Stigma
Ours is a fat-phobic society. We can’t deny it. Researchers on public health issues find that individuals deemed overweight or obese are thought to be lazy, weak-willed, unsuccessful, unintelligent, lack self-discipline, have poor willpower, and are noncompliant with weight-loss treatment. These stereotypes give way to stigma, prejudice, and discrimination against those living in larger bodies […]
Do you know the signs of disordered eating?
I had an eating disorder for far longer than I realized. When I finally came to grips with my disease and got help, I walked quite a ways back down amnesia lane with my therapist and dietitian. I was 30 years old at the time, and found my disorder started about age 10 while my […]
Midlife eating disorders
My mother has never been happy in her body. From the time she was 12 years old in 1952 and developed anorexia to her mid-70s now as a cyclical binge eater and restrictor, she has been unable to look at her body or the number on a scale and hear a kind word in her […]
Males don’t present like females with eating disorders
This statistic is false – males make up one in 10 of those with an eating disorder. But it’s the statistic most frequently quoted in the media. Why? Because this number represents the percentage of males seeking treatment. The reality is males make up at least 1 in 4 of those with anorexia and bulimia […]
We have a long way to go
I’m sitting in the San Francisco airport having wrapped up my week at the International Conference on Eating Disorders 2016. Perhaps it’s my fatigue setting in, but I don’t feel terribly enlightened from the experience. Instead I continue to feel sad at the state of the industry. Here’s why. My two personal areas of expertise […]