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This article will provide parents and caregivers with a comprehensive guide to the most effective treatment options for eating disorders in teens.
Introduction
Studies have found that 2.7% of teenagers experience an eating disorder at some point in their life, with 13% of adolescents developing an eating disorder by the time they turn 20. Eating disorders are more likely in women than they are in men, and they come with a variety of causes, particularly in adolescents. It can be difficult to treat eating disorders and adolescence, which is why it’s important to explore all of the most effective treatment options.
Common Types of Eating Disorders in Teens
The most common types of eating disorders in teenagers are anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is where teenagers restrict their caloric intake to an unsafe degree, and bulimia is where individuals utilize binging and purging to consume excess calories and then remove them through purging behaviors.
What Causes Eating Disorders in Teens?
So, what causes eating disorders in adolescence?
- Psychological factors like mood disorders, including depression or anxiety
- Social pressure
- Cultural pressure to look a certain way
- Biological or genetic factors
- Environmental triggers
Early Warning Signs and Symptoms of Eating Disorders in Teens
There are several early morning signs and symptoms of eating disorders in teenagers, including the following:
- Regular comments about their weight or physical appearance
- Skipping meals
- Restricting food intake
- Exercising excessively, particularly after earring
- Refusing to eat certain foods that “too fat” or “too sugary”
There may be physical signs like sudden and extreme weight loss and problems with the mouth or hair from excessive vomiting.
Sometimes, emotional and behavioral changes include extreme mood swings, while academic and social changes can be problems at school or sudden changes in friends.
Effective Treatment Options for Eating Disorders in Teens
The most effective treatment should include medical and nutritional support, psychotherapy, and alternative therapies like TMS.
-Medical and Nutritional Support
Medical monitoring is often a preliminary treatment option as it helps to ensure that teenagers who are at risk for malnutrition or low body weight get the nutritional counseling they need under supervision. This is something that a doctor can help facilitate and works well to bring individuals back to a healthy body weight with the right type of nutritional profile.
After this type of medical monitoring, individuals can start participating in things like psychotherapy and TMS.
-Psychotherapy and Counseling
Psychotherapy and counseling are some of the most important effective treatment options.
#1: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy provides a way for teenagers who struggle with eating disorders to change the way their automatic thoughts influence their automatic behaviors. Automatic thoughts are often negative thoughts like catastrophic thinking of the worst possible outcomes or mind reading, and these can heavily influence emotional states and subsequent eating disorder-related activities like binging and purging.
Understanding these links and the relationship between them can help individuals change the negative automatic thoughts for positive ones that are more grounded in reality.
#2: Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical behavioral therapy is another form of treatment for eating disorders in teens. This type of therapy helps individuals learn necessary skills that encourage mindfulness, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
As a teenager with an eating disorder, this mindfulness can help overcome things like binging by teaching individuals to be present in the moment when eating and be mindful of what is being consumed.
Distress tolerance can help individuals who have underlying mental health disorders that are contributing to their eating disorders. This level of distress tolerance and emotional regulation can give teenagers the skills to tolerate uncomfortable feelings and to learn how to control how they respond to those feelings.
For example:
Jennifer is a teenager who struggles with low-grade depression. She feels like she isn’t accepted by her peers and doesn’t have a lot of friends, so she has an emptiness inside her. She feels that emptiness with food by regularly binging. but then she feels fat and thinks that that’s a reason why she doesn’t have as many friends as she would like, so she utilizes purging behaviors.
With DBT, Jennifer would learn how to control these underlying feelings and change the way she responds to them without resorting to eating.
#3: Family-Based Therapy (FBT)
Family-based therapy can be particularly effective as a form of treatment for an eating disorder in adolescence. Family members play an important role in encouraging someone who struggles with eating disorders to get the help that they need and to remain active in staying healthy. Understanding what causes eating disorders in teens is something that is helpful to family members, especially parents, and siblings, and recognizing what things a loved one should do to overcome eating disorders in teenagers is something that brings a family together.
Family-based therapy can ensure that individuals with eating disorders are able to get adequate nutrition, keep their weight at a healthy level, and overcome binge-purge behaviors with correct exercise.
#4: TMS
When you look at the example of Jennifer above, there is an underlying issue of depression. What causes eating disorders in teams? So many other mental health factors can contribute to an eating disorder, particularly low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety.
With TMS, individuals can participate in a non-invasive form of outpatient treatment that helps Target certain areas of the brain responsible for things like depression and anxiety. By identifying the root cause of eating disorders in teens, TMS can provide a way to control binge-purge behaviors and other eating disorder-related activities by controlling the underlying anxiety or depression.
#5: Inpatient or Outpatient Programs
In some cases, eating disorders in adolescence need to be treated first and foremost with an inpatient or residential treatment program followed by an outpatient program and support groups. During the course of an inpatient program, eating disorders in adolescence will be tackled with proper nutritional counseling, education, mindfulness, and different forms of therapy. However, this type of care provides constant supervision during a critical time and makes it easier for teenagers to step away from the factors that might be exacerbating their eating disorders and focus on turning their attention Inward and making positive changes.
Conclusion
Overall, there are different treatment options available for eating disorders in teens, ranging from the highest level of supervision that comes from an inpatient program to an outpatient program therapy, TMS, and support groups. If you are worried about eating disorders in teenagers in your family, early intervention and a comprehensive treatment plan are key. Individualized treatment will involve medical, nutritional, and psychological support.