By Allie Tarkoff
This article explores how family members can play a pivotal role in supporting a loved one with an eating disorder. These approaches are broken into three separate parts, each detailing an important facet of your role as a source of support to your family member facing this disease.
The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) created a comprehensive list of ways family members can support a loved one struggling with an eating disorder. The list, however, is a series of bullet point suggestions without explanation and therefore provides limited guidance on how to implement these suggestions. As a result, I expanded upon some of the suggestions on how to manage your relationship with your family member struggling with this disease while also maintaining a positive and healthy attitude yourself.
Education:
It is easy for someone who has not struggled with an eating disorder to assume that short-term treatment successfully fixes all issues associated with the disorder. The reality, however, is not so simple. Combatting an eating disorder is a marathon, not a sprint. In order to properly support a family member battling an eating disorder, the NEDA recommends educating yourself about “the differences between facts and myths about weight, nutrition, and exercise”(NEDA). In fact, on our website, we include an article about the myths and misconceptions surrounding eating disorders, which is a great resource for family members. In an email chain with the executive assistant of the Eating Disorder Center, she recommended that family members read a book titled “Loving Someone with an Eating Disorder: Understanding, Supporting, and Connecting with Your Partner” to further educate themselves about eating disorders and the pivotal role of family members when helping a loved one recover.
Proactive Support:
While it is impossible for a family member to cure an eating disorder, recovery has proven far more effective with familial support. While the family member with an eating disorder may reject help and even claim they don’t need it, continuously showing support can truly help a loved one recover. The key here is proactivity: supporters should not forget the power of a simple check-in text, particularly one unrelated to the disorder. Listening to professionals is equally important as listening to the person who is actually struggling with a disorder. Their needs can help guide the process of responding and appropriately supporting them day-to-day.
There are various triggers that can perpetuate anxiety around food. One trigger that is commonly talked about is food-related comments. Sometimes it is best to leave out questions such as “what did you eat today,” or comments like “that’s such a small portion.” Contrary to popular opinion, the best role for a family member is to work on the anxiety around food and helping to alleviate that stress, rather than putting pressure on your family member to eat. In addition, there are often other underlying mental illnesses at play in those who suffer from eating disorders. According to The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD,) around half of anorexic patients have “comorbid anxiety disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and social phobia.” Furthermore, more than half of bulimia and binge eating disorder patients have comorbid anxiety and mood disorders (ANAD). These other mental illnesses often exacerbate an eating disorder even further and need to be respected and in the end resolved separately.
Acceptance:
In order to maintain a healthy and balanced relationship with your loved one struggling with an eating disorder, you must learn to accept where they are at. Acceptance of your family member’s eating disorder is very important in order to avoid manipulation. Acceptance is the ability to understand that you will not be able to control what your loved one eats or that they will automatically be cured after treatment. To become further involved, you should consider joining organizations that help family’s support their loved ones during their recovery. A great organization is Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders, (FEAST) which “is an international organization of and for caregivers of eating disorder patients. F.E.A.S.T. serves families by providing information and mutual support, promoting evidence-based treatment, and advocating for research”(http://www.feast-ed.org). This is just one out of many organizations that you can support and become involved in.
Challenges –– the balancing act
Having healthy boundaries as a sibling:
Sibling relationships can present difficulty in striking a balance between wishes for your siblings’ recovery, but also wanting to be someone they can trust. For example, a sibling may confide in another about the severity of their condition; perhaps a restriction on certain foods, an experience they’ve had, etc. Should the sibling uphold their promise of confidence, or reach out to others for further intervention? While there might be a right answer according to health professionals, the dilemma facing the sibling is a hard one to bear.
Staying Positive:
It is common to become easily discouraged if your family member is reluctant to accept your help or to be vulnerable with you about their eating disorder. Though this can make you easily impatient, it is important to remain optimistic and take it in stride. Understanding that this is a process and takes a long time is pivotal to continuing to be a source of strength and support for your family member.
Conclusion:
While there is certainly not one right way or strategy to helping your family member, the best ways you can support them is through education, proactive support, and acceptance. These three categories can help guide you through your involvement in your family member’s recovery. At its core, family members and health professionals play an equally important role in the recovery process for someone struggling with an eating disorder. While family members may not feel they have the capability to adequately help their loved one, they actually play a supportive role that is critical to the long-term recovery process of those who suffer.
Extra Resources:
Below is a link to every source mentioned in this article. Many of these websites have valuable information that can give you further insight and information about eating disorders and the importance of familial support.
Book Recommendations
“Please eat...: A mother's struggle to free her teenage son from anorexia” by Bev Mattocks
“Loving someone with an eating disorder” by Dana Harron