Okay. rewriting. And sorry above poster. That read too mean. I wasn't trying to attack.
Only bother reading if you want a rambling exploration of the topic and that aspects of it that are relent to what looks nuts to those not involved.
So about 50% of eating disorders are by twin study experiments genetic.
If you have a twin and she gets anorexia there is a 50% chance you will too, even if your environmental influences are entirely alien to hers.
- so parents may cause eating disorders sometimes but eating disorders are not directly the result of any external influence but a load gentics gun. Esp anorexia.
Abuse is minimal in anorexia - about 20%, of which not more than 10% is located within the family unit, and so its not about families. Once it gets going its not really about anything.
And parental involvement is not exactly a piece of cake. Its a lot of continuous effort and it is quite an insane making job.
Regarding causation
The general sensible and accepted opinion is that
- " the working theory as to how eating disorders develop is that genes and environment work together to influence risk—like a “perfect storm.” Just the particular genetic predisposition put in just the particular environment at a particular point in development can set the stage for an eating disorder."
Parents are not doing this to avoid outside help. Often they are desperate for it. In the UK the NHS system means people who are literally emaciated are put on 6 month waiting lists. Its actually better with children as they are allocated more funding but many parents don't have the option of decent medical back up, and are at the mercy of GP's who took a weekend module on the subject 20 years ago. I mean seriously.
Just cuz you dont get it dont mean it dont work. And for parents, well, if your child is sick you cant really know to much, and Dr vos would you really leave this to a doctor, if it was your kid? Cause I'd want to be in the best position to help possible,
- The number one most necessary aspect of recovery is eating sufficiently returning the body to a healthy weight and maintaing whilst learning to deal with life without limiting food in take. This is acrosss treatment methods. The main point of psychotherapy is, as in motivation interviewing, inspiring efforts to do this and helping them manage psychologically but its really fucking hard because it feels horrendous. Like you taken too many uppers and your skin is crawling. But all the time and when not high. People with anorexia are ofter treated with antipsychotics to help them deal, its that rough.
Lets look at the alternative to forcing your child to eat, and the mainstay of the past 50 years of eating disorder treatment so with well documented results.
- as mentioned without external support this takes about 7 years to manage in those that make it.
- 10-20% will die, either directly from starvation or suicide.
- 30% remain chronically ill indefinitely
I know forcing someone with an eating disorder to eat looks like it ought to be destructive. I know that for you or I, to be forced to eat would only make our relationship with food worse. Eating is a personal thing, and to rob that independence of someone seems coercive, undermining, and unlikely to be of long term assistance.
I know,
But for a Second - Suspend Your Disbelief.
Recovery from anorexia is an alternative reality.
Your child has lost a worrying amount of weight, is withdrawn, has lost her hobbies, her friends, and is spending every waking hour exercising. She cooks all the time, and talks about food obsessively but when it comes to eating she has only a fixed and diminishing range of food choices. Shes stopped eating dinner with the rest of the family. The doctors say her heart rate is dangerously low. She has the symptoms of hypothermia. Shes terribly anxious but otherwise listless and her spark has gone. And utterly terrifying to you, its clear its getting worse and shes shrinking before your eyes
she doesnt engage with the therapy you get her to attend. The torture of this for 7 years whilst trying to work out how you fucked up, if you didn't, would be excruciating and not helpful in promoting change.
if left in the care of doctors there is a 40% chance she will loose her life either through being two ill to have one or dying because she is too physically ill or not mentally able to survive the illness. one way or another is almost sure to loose the next 7 or so years of her life even if she recovers independently of you in the end.
- so in a best case scenario even if she recovers she will sacrifice her teenage years, her bone health, her education, her independence and her friends.(And when she gets well, she's lost bone mass, heart health and size, and digestive functioning for a long time after. She might still end up in a wheel chair a 60 due osteoporosis) But hey, 60 % chance she will have something of a life. This will tear both your home and your mental wellbeing apart as you watch her and will for her to manage alone but cycle through failed treatment options (that you play no part in) , take her to hospital when shes sick enough to be sectioned, watch her try to eat enough after release but be unable to manage the horrendous anxiety and return to loosing weight. Self harm, and emotional dysfunction. All the time watching from the sidelines, unable to help, because the doctors have "given her a meal plan" and she swears she's eating what it prescribes, although it is obvious from both the meal sizes, and the weight loss she tries to hide that she is failing, and its heartbreaking and terrifying, but you have been told by every medical professional you ask that theres
Nothing you can do except put more efforts into fixing perceived family dysfunctions,
The doctors are trying to fix the eating disorder by fixing family relations, but this doesn't work. As one doctors notes its common for medical professionals get the:
" cause and effect backwards: (the only way) to make my family work better, we needed to tackle the eating disorder first."
But the intuitions you guys have are present too, so there is dispute. The conceptual understanding of the issue is far from singular or undisputed. But the 'food is first' model is often taken quite simplistically by parents simply because the situation is an awful lot more complicated than they are able to work out clearly initially. But confidence is key, and a singular message (and, yes, obsessiveness) allows this better than 'its family dynamics and fear of loss of control/growing up/failure. -> one message and understanding enables effective action, and they are is divide and conquer.
so food is the number one priority. And leaving it to the doctors wont make it get eaten
in a different treatment model, highly alien from the first. In this you abandon the role of watching from the sidelines and instead do the effort for your child. Instead of watching her try and fail to do what she is too sick to do, you take away the reigns and manage recovery for her. This means doing what is required for her to regain mental and physical health. It means making her gain weight. This is both horrendously distressing and time consuming. She takes 2 hours to eat a meal. She hides food. She chucks food. But shes safe and in time, she is likely to learn to manage. But to get her to that point may require eating a lot more calories than is usual. The reason the parents on the site talk so much about food is because so much of it is needed and its so hard to get an anorexic to eat it. Its not uncommon for patients to burn calories very fast after being underweight for a prolonged period and many doctors don't know everything I have sighted above, and assume, like you, its about parents being too interfering. Not to mention we live in an utterly fat phobic society in which healhty eating is way over hyped so doctors tend to be overly fearful of high fat high calorie diets (which are without a doubt necessary to gain weight and health) and there is evidence that people predisposed to anorexia require more food to remain a healthy weight after recovery for about a year. (again not common knowledge)
Imagine that having someone tell your daughter to eat healthily sends her into a tail spin in which she has a meltdown panic attacks, assuming this means shes eating too much and is greedy and needs to restrict. She utterly freaks out and won't eat what she needs or the foods that allow her to eat enough to regain health as these high fat and she feels to horrendous.
You are going to want to make them stick to the script = this is what you need. Eventually that singular repeated message and action will get the kid well, not all the time, but at least half. Individual therapy relies on the motivation of someone with a starved brain, often in the middle of adolescence and torn about recovery and their motivation for it. Just eat relies on nothing more than repetition. Perhaps its the sanity preserving element of the singular message that makes it so ott. Perhaps its because it takes so much energy to match the 'just DONT eat' of their child this is the only way they can over power their obsession. I dont know, but it works. eventually.
That is the fruit of love and hardship not abuse and dysfunction.
"An eating disorder is a phenomenally stressful illness. Every meal brings arguments and worries. Is my child going to eat? Are they going to run to the bathroom to purge after? Will they exercise it off? The person with the eating disorder is anxious and depressed, they feel compelled to engage in behaviors, yet embarrassed of their symptoms."
- again simple message keeps you sane?
I do agree its a bit too likely to not fully take into account other aspects of the situation, but it
seems to just be very easy to grasp for very confused parents. And yes some go overboard, some a re paranoid and traumatised for years after, which results in overboard. But the situation itself - having a kid literally on deaths door because they won't eat leads to overboard reactions re food for a long time. I had an eating disorder 10 years ago and if my mother lets slip she's not eating wheat for her digestive issues she becomes anxious she's affected me. I couldn't give a toss but she got freaked out majorly
Lets say 10% of anorexic parents abuse their kids. I'd doubt 3% were stalking that forum.
I don't see why you you assume that those parents who and join online forums and ask questions and obsess about how much their children are eating and spend endless hours sitting at the dinner table are likely to be the abusive ones?
The assumption that this is motivated by something malicious and not of care is odd because it takes so much effort.
"making someone eat" is consuming. Ha. It Involves a) putting food on the table b) repeating the need to eat and stopping them leaving the eating area or following with the food if they do c)avoiding engagement with the random anorexic talk they are spewing and keeping calm. Repeating mantras. c) encouraging their efforts d) waiting for about 1 - 2 hours to eat a single meal. Its not uncommon for breakfast to run into lunch lunch dinner and so forth e) keeping them from engaging in activities to counter act eating for an hour or two afterwards f) repeat.
And stubborn determination throughout.
- the reason the control myth grew is because anorexics are fucking hard to control on food!
For Two Fucking Years.
Or more.
I dont think much other than devotion to wellbeing would keep ya going. And abusive behaviour leads to failure. Shouting or hitting will not result in meals being eaten. Its not fear of punishment which allows anorexics to eat but the removal of alternatives and consequentially the anxiety of not persuing them. making health required, not optional in those who cant decide to be well. You make not eating properly not an option and over time this allows the patient to accept recovery, though not desire it in most cases. They will still resist food, but passively, and they will eat, and their personality will begin to gradually reappear. To maintain this you may have to manage their meals for a long time after they're a healthy weight. They need to relearn how to do this and that takes time and motivation which means you need to wait for their anxiety and anguish to dissipate. But its a shit load quicker and less risky than leaving them to DIY and wait and see...
Please don't criticise what you can't understand.
And if you are in this position: Research.
Knowledge is power,
And get medical help. Get medical help that sights studies and effectiveness and doctors that Know Their Fucking Shit.
Don't follow the advice of people who are working on the data of the 1980s, or what they absorb from the media. Know your shit and find others who do to.
If you want to have some actual information to base your judgements upon, here ya go .
http://evamusby.co.uk/ (advice on how to refeed well. Calm. The key is Calm)
https://uncexchanges.org/2016/10/31...ders-part-2-the-genetics-of-eating-disorders/ (why its not your fault, regardless of if you are ill or your child is)
https://www.graceonthemoon.com/ (if you are an adult with an eating disorder)
https://www.aroundthedinnertable.org/file?id=3244506 (for good clinical support in face to face on how to do this right)
Simple 2 minute read covering the relationship between parental behaviour and childrens illnesses:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...ionship-between-families-and-eating-disorders
https://www.kartiniclinic.com/blog/ (Julie O'tool - top eating disorder doctor you can trust)
