Category: Families

In this third post that June Alexander has adapted from Alykhan’s Asaria’s article on improving eating disorder care for underserved groups, three more underserved groups are discussed — younger children, people with under-recognised eating disorders, and people with higher weights. Younger children and pre-adolescents Children under 13, and by implication,...

With my co-author, Professor Daniel Le Grange, I’m delighted to announce the worldwide release of My Kid is Back, Second Edition. We thank families from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand for contributing to this new book’s powerful message about Family-Based Treatment (FBT), the most effective...

Living with an eating disorder is hard, and recovery is everything but linear. Summer has been bravely battling anorexia nervosa since the fall of 2023. After much progress during the summer of 2024, Summer’s return to school dragged us back into the grim reality of dealing with an eating disorder...

Imagine a Global Board that listens to “everyone” in the eating disorder field. What a difference it could make to lives everywhere! The vision for a Global Board comes from the indefatigable Elissa Myers, former chief staff executive of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED). Under Elissa’s proposed model, a...

I am surrounded by 10 family members inside the National Library of Australia, Canberra. We are in a private reading room to visit my diary ‘family’, the early years of which are spread before us on a long table. Emotions bubble within—I feel exposed, unclothed, with my mind, heart, and...

I don’t remember at what age I discovered Impressionism, an art movement in the 19th Century. Van Gogh, Monet and Degas, among others, created works of art that differed significantly from the painting style of their time. I was drawn to Impressionism the moment I saw it and have loved...

I travelled by train instead of car on Christmas Day 2024. Instead of the usual two-and-a-half hour drive to the home of my children’s dad, George, in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, I took the country train. On Christmas Eve, in a burst of planning, my Melbourne-based daughter and her family collected...

As the sole host of Korea’s Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW), I am researching the themes and issues to be covered in the seven sessions of our third event in February 2025. To fully understand and engage with these topics, I immerse myself deeply, processing them, formulating insightful questions to...

Family Based Treatment is the best, evidence-based approach for most children and adolescents to get their life back on track when they develop an eating disorder – particularly anorexia nervosa. But what about those of us whose eating disorders developed before Family Based Treatment (FBT) became an option? Or those...

Exercise is good, but excessive or compulsive exercise can be dangerous. At age 13, Kristen embraced the outdoors and enjoyed cross-country running at school. She was not overweight, had never been a big eater, ate little junk food and was not concerned about her body image, but she did want...