Treating Eating Disorders in Teens

With three percent of adolescents between the age of 13 and 18 developing an eating disorder, you might worry that your teen is at risk. While both male and female teenagers can suffer from eating disorders, 75 percent of teens suffering from anorexia and 80 percent with bulimia are female. Eating orders can cause long-term health problems and sometimes, in severe cases death. If you suspect that your teen has an eating disorder, the time to seek help and treatment is now. This step can be scary, and the more information you have the easier it is for you to seek treatment for your teen.

What Are Eating Disorders in Teens?

Almost every teenager is insecure about the way that they look and their weight. You’re always looking for tips for parents dealing with a teenage eating disorder. This makes it challenging to determine if your teen has an eating disorder or normal body issues. There are three most common eating disorders that affect adolescents, including:

• Anorexia: The full name of the disorder is anorexia nervosa. Teens suffering from the disorder will starve themselves of their needed fuel and nutrition in a bid to lose more weight. When they look in the mirror, they see themselves as fat no matter how thin they become.  
• Bulimia: With bulimia, the teen is in a cycle of eating large amounts of food — binge eating — and then purging the food from their bodies. There are several ways that people with bulimia purge, such as vomiting, taking laxatives, taking diuretics, excessive exercising, and fasting. 
• Compulsive Eating Disorder: A teen suffering from a compulsive eating disorder will binge eat food. This is more than overeating and more like gorging food and not being able to get enough. They can have days when everything is fine and others when they’re binge eating.

Dual Diagnosis

For many teens with an eating disorder, there is an underlying cause that leaves them susceptible to an eating disorder. In many cases, a dual diagnosis is a mental health issue. It can also be a control issue. While they can’t control everything in their lives, they can control the food that they eat except in the case of binging.

To successfully treat the eating disorder, you must also treat the underlying cause. Fairwinds Treatment Centers understands the need to treat both the cause and the disorder. The most common underlying causes are:

[themify_col grid=”2-1 first”]

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Personal trauma
• Obsessive compulsive disorder
• Bipolar disorder

[/themify_col] [themify_col grid=”2-1″]

• Low self-esteem
• Trauma
• Social factors
• Attachment issues

[/themify_col]

Symptoms of an Eating Disorder in Adolescents

Eating disorders take a toll on the body, and this is especially true of teenagers who are still growing and developing. Symptoms of eating disorders can vary, depending on which disorder your teen has, but here are some of the most common:

[themify_col grid=”2-1 first”]

• Extreme weight loss
• Weight gain
• Too thin or unhealthy appearance
• Thinning and unhealthy hair
• Erratic heartbeats 
• Dizziness
• Fainting
• Yellow skin
• Poor oral hygiene
• Low blood pressure[/themify_col] [themify_col grid=”2-1″]
• Always tired
• Digestive problems
• Heart failure
• Irregular menstrual cycles
• Tooth decay
• Gum disease
• Electrolyte imbalance
• Dehydration
• Fatigue[/themify_col]

Signs of an Eating Disorder in Teenagers

If your teen is suffering from an eating disorder, they may try to hide the signs of it from you. You may need to pay a little more attention to their daily habits and appearance. This is especially true around mealtimes when they’re trying to hide how much or how little they are eating from you. Here are a few of the signs that your teen might be battling an eating disorder:

[themify_col grid=”2-1 first”]

• Tooth decay
• Gum disease
• Electrolyte imbalance
• Dehydration
• Fatigue
• Extreme weight loss
• Too thin or unhealthy appearance
• Thinning and unhealthy hair
• Extreme and excessive exercise
• Erratic heartbeats 

[/themify_col] [themify_col grid=”2-1″]

• Dizziness
• Fainting
• Yellow skin
• Poor oral hygiene
• Low blood pressure
• Always tired
• Hides food in strange places
• Drinks excessive amounts of water
• Appears bloated from fluid retention

[/themify_col]

Levels of Care for Teens With Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are like most other medical conditions. There are levels of advancement — how far along the illness has progressed, — and this directly affects the level of care that your teen needs to help cope and overcome their eating disorder. At Fairwinds Treatment Centers, we will run an initial assessment to help determine the level of care your teen needs. There are five levels of care at our eating disorder treatment center, including:

• Level One Outpatient: The patient maintains an 85 percent healthy body weight, and they’re medically stable. The patient requires minimal coaxing and encouragement to gain weight or avoid binge eating. It’s okay for them to stay at home.
• Level Two Intensive Outpatient: This patient is also medically stable and able to stay at home in the evenings. They aren’t as motivated to gain weight or stop binge eating as a level one patient. It’s a matter of a little more supervision and structure. 
• Level Three Partial Hospitalization: The patient is medically stable but doesn’t see the benefit of gaining weight or avoiding binge eating. They need full-time outpatient care, and they need to attend intensive therapy sessions at the treatment center. Including both one-on-one and group, the therapy sessions are a must. 
• Level Four Residential Treatment: Patients at this level may have some minor medical conditions because of their harmful eating disorder. It requires structure and guidance to get this group to gain weight or to stop binging. Someone needs to constantly monitor their calorie intake.
• Level Five Inpatient Treatment: With medical issues and declining health, these patients might have some may have suicidal thoughts and actions. At Fairwinds, we constantly supervise and watch over the patient to ensure that they get a healthy amount of calories and don’t binge. 

Eating Disorders Treatment Center Professionals

No matter the level of care prescribed, your son or daughter will encounter and work with a variety of professionals. Each member of our staff at Fairwinds has your teen’s best interest at heart. They’re dedicated to helping your teen recover and use empathy and compassion to help your adolescent rediscover their self-esteem. Here are some of the professionals who will help your teen recover:

• Psychiatrists
• Nurses
• Counselors
• Physicians
• Nutritionists
• Therapists

Mealtime Support

One of the most stressful times for a teen with an eating disorder is mealtime. Our staff of nutritionists spends their time creating meals that are appealing while providing all the nutrition that your teen needs. During mealtimes, there are always staff members on hand to help your teen make wise decisions and work through any stress that they experience and keeps them from eating. We also track how much your adolescent eats during mealtime to help measure their recovery. 

Our goal is to help your child return home with a healthy relationship with food so that they can live a wonderful life. We understand that once they return home there will be stressors that they don’t encounter at the treatment center. During their treatment, we’ll take the time to explore these especially stressful situations and how to deal with them. These situations include:

• Shopping at a grocery store
• End of meal desserts
• Prepping for meals
• Eating out at a restaurant

Individual Therapy Sessions

While your teen is seeking treatment for an eating disorder, they’ll attend one-on-one therapy sessions to help explore their unique relationship with food and its root causes. During these sessions, your child and the therapist will find and treat your teens underlying causes for their eating disorder. They will learn new ways of dealing with body issues and learn how to rebuild their self-esteem. 

Your teen and their therapist will devise a schedule for their visits. You should expect only a single visit per day and several days per week. 

Group Therapy Sessions

There’s nothing quite like seeing your not the only one suffering from a disorder to help you overcome it. At least once a day and more than likely a couple of times a day, your teen will attend a group therapy session during their recovery. This is their chance to discuss what led to their disorder and ways that they’re coping with their recovery. The group will discuss things that work for one member and not for another to give your teen treatment options and coping methods that work for them. 

During group therapy, there is a counselor who leads the group and keeps the teens on task. If the talk is moving in a positive direction, the leader steps back and lets the teens do the work. However, if the group gets off-topic, the leader will gently lead the discussion back on to a positive track. During group therapy, your teen may work with others on exercises to improve communication and ways to deal with daily, stressful situations. Like with all other therapy, the goal is for your teen to return home with self-esteem and coping methods to help them effectively deal with their disorder.

Only 1 in 10 men and women with eating disorders seek treatment. If your teenager is suffering from an eating disorder, it’s crucial they receive professional help immediately. At Fairwinds Treatment Center, our team emphasizes comprehensive healing by using clinical treatment and therapeutic counseling to help our patients achieve lasting and sustainable wellness.

At Fairwinds Treatment Centers, we understand how scary a diagnosed eating disorder is, and we’re here to help. We work with the entire family to help your teen overcome their eating disorder. Contact us today for more information.