Help Message to Parents and Caregivers

Males with eating disorders

Their family and friends

Healthcare professionals

Males with Eating Disorders

Are you wondering if you have an eating disorder? Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

1. Do you restrict food intake, purge,

     compulsively overeat or binge?

2. Do you abuse diuretics, laxatives, diet pills or

      steroids?

3. Are you preoccupied with thoughts of food,

      weight, muscularity or appearance?

4. Do you exercise compulsively?

5. Do you label food as safe/unsafe?

6. Do you experience guilt after eating?

7. Are you rigidly in control or feel out of control when eating?

8. Do you avoid eating in social situations?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, you may have an eating disorder. People with eating disorders often:

1. Feel emotionally numb

2. Feel depressed and anxious

3. Are obsessive-compulsive

4. Have low self-esteem

5. Are socially withdrawn

Do any of these traits sound like yours?

Recognizing and admitting to your eating disorder is a critical first step followed by a desire to want to change and heal from the destructive grip of the eating disorder. The next step is to take action by seeking out professional help to help you overcome this disease.

Remember, an eating disorder is not your fault, both females and males get eating disorders, and admirable is the one who admits to his weaknesses and problems and takes action to improve himself.

Eating disorders are developed by a complex combination of factors. Eating disorder behaviors are used as a coping strategy (albeit an ineffective way) to deal with stress, conflict, and problems.

Be reassured you are not alone with your eating disorder. There are many boys and men with eating disorders. Pursuing therapy takes courage, effort, and time, but it is worth the effort. Recovery will bring you improved psychological and physical health and more happiness, peace, and energy. There is hope for a better tomorrow, but you have to believe in it and work for it.

If you need a treatment referral, write to Chris@NAMEDinc.org. A N.A.M.E.D. sponsor can offer you individual phone and e-mail support. Join the Males with Eating Disorders Online Support Group to give and receive support from other males in recovery from eating disorders. N.A.M.E.D. is here to help you, so feel free to contact N.A.M.E.D. for treatment referrals, support, and information.

Their Family & Friends

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.

Nothing motivates people more to get better 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.

Adults (- those 18 and older) have the legal right to accept or refuse treatment.

People with eating disorders are not in the right state of mind and often will initially refuse treatment. It is a symptom of the illness to resist and deny the eating disorder's existence and seriousness. Eating disorders are not choices, but illnesses that are difficult to control.

A great deal of inner strength and perseverance is required to overcome eating disorders. A person may accept treatment more because it is the right thing to do, than because he is ready to let go of the eating disorder.

Seek immediate medical attention for any symptoms, such as chest pain, that pose imminent danger to the person with the eating disorder.

If a person with an eating disorder's condition becomes life-threatening or his self-destructive behavior worsens, consider an intervention. An intervention is facilitated by a therapist with the help of the family. The purpose of the intervention is to confront the individual with the eating disorder in a non-threatening, respectful way, and to show him how his self-destructive behavior affects him and his family, in order to motivate him to admit to his eating disorder and accept help.

Do not ignore your family member or friend's purging, bingeing, hoarding, and other self-destructive behaviors. Confront him in a composed manner, explain why his behavior is destructive to him and how it affects the family, and insist that he stop or go to counseling. Make him responsible for his actions, such as by cleaning the bathroom after vomiting or buying food to replenish the food binged on.

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 their loved one'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.

For example, as a parent evaluate your and your family’s comments, attitudes, and behaviors about weight, eating, appearance, and exercise. Do you make derogatory comments about people who you observe to be overweight? Do you have strict rules about what and when to eat? Are you or others in the family obsessed with appearance, losing weight, or exercise?

Additionally, evaluate your family’s communication skills and style, mode of self expression of emotions, and the dynamics of control. Above all, do not be afraid to participate with your loved one in therapy. Family and couples therapy is meant to improve the relationship between the person with the eating disorder and his family, not to place blame or to set one member against the others.

For your own mental health, it is important to share your frustrations and concerns about your family member or friend's eating disorder with trusted others. Just as the person affected with an eating disorder does not want anyone to find out about it, so too, the same secrecy is present in the family about not wanting others to know.

Consider counseling for yourself as a means of dealing with any guilt, stress, frustration, and anger you have resulting from how his eating disorder has affected you. The therapist can also give you helpful tips on how to manage your situation and direct you to information on the subject.

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 reach out and accept help.

To receive information, guidance, or a treatment referral, write to Chris@NAMEDinc.org or call Chris at the N.A.M.E.D. toll-free helpline at 1-877-780-0080.

Healthcare Professionals

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.

Physicians and nurses need to recognize the signs of an eating disorder and be prepared to offer referrals to treatment. The physicians themselves can be an integral part of the treatment team for monitoring and treating the individual's medical condition.

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 stop destructive behaviors, and to discover with the individual the meaning and symbolism of food in his life.

If you need to refer a patient to a competent eating disorder therapist or treatment facility, write to Chris@NAMEDinc.org or call Chris at the N.A.M.E.D. toll-free helpline at 1-877-780-0080.