Contact a local eating disorder treatment facility, hospital, or your physician for a referral. Should you not be familiar with a local eating disorder treatment center nor find your local hospital or physician helpful with providing a referral, you may contact the National Eating Disorders Association (N.E.D.A.) Information and Referral Helpline at (800) 931-2237 for assistance.

Family and friends find their relationship strained and uncomfortable with the person with the eating disorder. The best intentioned advice from concerned others is fraught with anger, resistance, and denial from the person with the eating disorder. This inability to reach out to help and convince him to get professional help is frustrating, despairing, and overwhelming. One feels at a loss of how to help him. This often is a very emotional issue for those who love the person with the eating disorder.

Concerned friends, family members, and significant others can be invaluable in offering encouragement and support. Encourage the one affected with the eating disorder to seek treatment, but don't pester about it. When he is in treatment offer support. You can offer a person support in all of the following ways:

1. Be willing to listen
2. Be empathetic
3. For adults, those over 18, respect their freedom to make their own decisions and choices
4. Be willing to participate in therapy, if asked
5. Try to minimize, rather than maximize, his anxiety level
6. Say things that build his self-esteem (such as pointing out his strengths)
7. Be honest, but not judgmental and critical
8. Be patient with him
9. Avoid giving advice
10. When expressing your feelings, do so with “I statements” (I feel…), rather than, “you statements” (you make me feel…)
11. When approaching him about his eating disorder, always do so when you are composed, rather than emotional and upset
12. Don't monitor his food intake
13. When a person is in therapy, acknowledge his progress with comments about positive changes in character, rather than to comments about weight
14. Avoid talking about things at meals that will cause him to feel anxious and upset
15. Refrain from talking about weight, calories, food, and appearance; and never label food as “good” and “bad”
16. Be a model of effective coping skills, healthy food attitudes and behaviors, and moderate exercise

Nothing motivates people more than a person who sincerely loves and cares about them.

Don't pester, manipulate, or try to control a person with an eating disorder. These power struggles only make things worse as he will rebel and withdraw from you, and his eating disorder may worsen with the added stress.

Remember, do not take personally the defensive remarks of a person with an eating disorder. Try to understand he, without realizing it, is using the eating disorder as a coping mechanism for dealing with displaced feelings and internal conflict. Furthermore, he opposes others exerting control over him as a direct threat to his own authority to control things in his life.

If you are a parent of a child under 18 with an eating disorder, it is your responsibility to get medical help for your child, as he is still under your care and supervision.

If you remember nothing else after reading this section, REMEMBER this one critical point:  When you feel angry and frustrated with the individual with the eating disorder, remember, it is his illness symptoms, not him as a person, that is the focus of your anger and frustration.  Therefore, you can love him, while being angry with the symptoms of his illness that work to destroy him.  Express this to him.  For example one’s significant other might mention to his/her partner, that he/she loves him (- the qualities and personality characteristics that make him uniquely who he is), but, feels angry at his obsessive exercising that takes away from quality time spent together.

Probably the most difficult thing for especially parents and significant others to accept is the fact that their comments, attitudes, and behaviors may be fueling the boy or man’s eating disorder.  This is not a cause for blame; after all we are all a product of our culture and family’s attitudes and behaviors.  But, just as the person with the eating disorder seeks change, so too, it is important that family and friends strive for their own self-improvement for their own health and the health of the person with the eating disorder.

Become informed about eating disorders, look to others for support, and become a member of an eating disorder organization. Don't despair, be patient! Your gentle prodding and concern for the individual's well-being will prepare him for a moment when he is ready to choose to change.

While there will be many similarities to other people with eating disorders, therapists must recognize and respect the unique individual differences of each client, as a means of addressing the client's treatment needs and developing a good working relationship with the client.

The general healthcare professional must understand that an eating disorder is a serious illness affecting the victim both physically and psychologically, and both females and males are vulnerable to eating disorders.

Those affected by eating disorders need to be referred to a competent therapist, dietician, and physician familiar with the medical conditions, psychological affects, erroneous thought patterns, eating disordered behaviors, and emotional displacement issues of their clients or patients with eating disorders.

A multidimensional approach to therapy with a treatment team is needed for best results to treatment. The core treatment team should consist of a physician, psychiatrist, therapist, and nutritionist. Besides individual therapy, clients may also benefit from group therapy and family or couples therapy.

The person with an eating disorder needs a nutritionist or dietician who has experience working with people with eating disorders. Dieticians must be prepared to help their clients to experience less anxiety with eating food; dispel erroneous beliefs about food, weight, and calories; and to monitor feelings associated with food and eating.

Besides the treatment team offering support and encouragement, they can be invaluable in assisting the person to adapt to new, healthier beliefs, to change ineffective behaviors, and to discover with the individual the meaning and symbolism of food in his life.