Eating disorders are complex psychiatric diseases involving an individual’s eating behaviors, self-image and body weight.
Kamryn Eddy, PhD, Co-Director of the Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, is at the forefront of the latest research advancements and public education about eating disorders.
Eddy’s team is comprised of a multidisciplinary team of psychologists, psychiatrists and endocrinologists and neuroscientists working together to better understand how eating disorders start and progress.
She explains that this team-based approach is essential for a complex psychiatric disease such as an eating disorder, which can have several different biological or medical risk factors.
Eddy and her team also work to educate the public about eating disorders and to debunk common misconceptions about eating disorders, such as the ones listed below:
MISCONCEPTION #1
MISCONCEPTION: Eating disorders aren’t serious illnesses.
FACT #1
FACT: Eating disorders can affect up to 5% of the population, more commonly young adults and teens and is a serious psychiatric illness that need proper diagnosis and treatment.
MISCONCEPTION #2
MYTH: Eating disorders are just about food.
FACT #2
FACT: Eating disorders are complex psychiatric illnesses.
MISCONCEPTION #3
MISCONCEPTION: Eating disorders are a women’s illness.
FACT #3
FACT: Eating disorders can affect anyone.
MISCONCEPTION #4
MISONCEPTION: Only very thin people have an eating disorder.
FACT #4
FACT: Eating disorders can occur in individuals of all weights.
MISONCEPTION #5
MISCONCEPTION: You can tell if someone has an eating disorder by looking at them.
FACT #5
FACT: Given that eating disorders are complex psychiatric illnesses, you cannot recognize if a person has an eating disorder simply by looking at them. A proper clinical diagnosis is required.
MISCONCEPTION #6
MISCONCEPTION: Eating disorders are a result of dysfunctional families.
FACT #6
FACT: Eating disorders are not a consequence of dysfunctional families.
MISCONCEPTION #7
MISCONCEPTION: Anorexia is the only serious eating disorder.
FACT #7
FACT: There are several eating disorders, including Anorexia Nervosa.
What’s next in eating disorders research
Over the past years, Eddy and her research team have focused their efforts on investigating a relatively new eating disorder: Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, also known as ARFID – a restrictive type of eating disorder that’s characterized by food avoidance or restriction.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for ARFID is a novel treatment that Eddy and her colleague Jennifer Thomas, PhD, developed. They have delivered such treatment to hundreds of patients in their inpatient and outpatient programs. They also study under what circumstances the therapy is most effective.
A big part of the therapy is its education piece which seeks to help the patient understand how, independent of what factors may have contributed to the development of their ARFID in the first place, the food avoidance and restriction and their effects are now maintaining the problem.
The treatment itself involves what we know of as exposure. Exposure is the heart of any kind of cognitive behavioral therapy – getting practice with something that you’ve been avoiding to build skills and increase competency.
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