How to Care for Anorexia in Children and Young Adults
Dealing with children or young adults with anorexia can be a very trying experience for a parent to handle. It’s very important for the parent to become as knowledgeable as possible about the subject so that they may be as supportive as possible. There are some great books out there on the subject like Give Food A Chance by Dr Julie O Toole. The expert Dr Julie O Toole believes in a focusing on the whole of the situation that the child is in. She really gets behind the reason for the disorder rather than just focusing directly on the Anorexia. Give Food A Chance is also a good read because she addresses the issue of unnecessary guilt in parents. A parent can feel a great deal of guilt about their child’s disease. It has to be understood that this is not the fault of the way that the parent raises the kid. It is a mental disorder so this must be seen. Feeling guilt is just a waste of time and doesn’t contribute to the effective treatment of a patient. Give Food A Chance also touches on the fact that oftentimes a person suffering from Anorexia may relapse at some point in their treatments. Dr Julie O Toole stresses that it’s important to keep this in mind and plan for it. If it happens it is just another step in the treatment of the disease, and it is not necessarily a form of failure for the patient. This is important to keep in mind.
