Archive for November, 2009

Tips for Overcoming Holiday Stress & Anxiety – Part II: The Stress

Thanksgiving, a holiday of gratitude and hopefulness, can also come with a large dose of frustration, worry and woes.  In an attempt to make this Thanksgiving a positive one, especially for those who are also struggling with an eating disorder, we’ve offered some ideas for overcoming and embracing the holiday season.  Yesterday, we posted Part I: The Food, the first in a holiday blog series that addresses unique challenges associated with eating and socializing during the holidays. Today, Part II in the series offers even more constructive ideas and concrete steps you can take to make your Thanksgiving a success, while still prioritizing your recovery.

Part II: When it comes to the STRESS…

If the place where you are staying is particularly stressful or triggering, carving out time for yourself is a necessity.  Try finding a quiet room to be alone for several minutes in order to clear your head and re-energize yourself for encounters with others around you. Taking five minutes out to breathe and re-center can make a big difference in your ability to maintain your composure and keep you focused on your goals of having a healthy and positive holiday experience.  If you’re worried that you will seem rude if you leave or have a hard time finding the time to be alone, consider offering to pick up or drop off elderly family members who can’t drive themselves.  

  • Depending on your preference, try to let those around you know what is helpful and what isn’t. The holidays are an important time to practice being assertive.
  • Reach out - we all know one or two people who can’t travel to their own family’s Thanksgiving event or just don’t have a place to go for the holiday – invite them along to share in your festivities.  
    • Bonus - An extra support person for you before, during and after the meal!  
  • Focus on the kids!  Get the younger generation involved in your support plan.  Round up the youngest family members for a post-dinner game of  Pictionary or puzzles.  Often, kids can be the most positive and least triggering family members.
  • In the event that someone makes a triggering food/body comment to you, have a plan for ways to quickly shift attention away from you in a positive way…respond strategically to the comment and then ask your cousin how her new job is going, or mention that your parents should tell everyone about their recent vacation.
  • Just because it is a holiday doesn’t mean you have to clear your social calendar – think about making plans with a friend to see a movie right after your holiday gathering so you can have something to look forward to regardless of how well your Thanksgiving meal goes. 
  • The same goes for your pre-meal schedule.  Sitting around, smelling food and just waiting for the meal to be ready can be a very triggering or anxiety-provoking time.  Consider offering to run a last minute errand or employ yourself as the family photographer!  Make it your goal to snap some great pictures of your family members arriving and socializing together. 
    • Bonus – The resulting photos could make great gifts when the next holiday rolls around!

Although the holidays can be difficult, try to place them in perspective and remember that no single day determines your worth, value, or potential as a person.  Regardless of what you hear from others, keep in mind that this is a season of hope and thanks-giving, so try to focus less on the stressors and more on the ability that you have to give thanks and receive joy this holiday season.

Find even more holiday coping skills by reading last year’s blog, Thanksgiving with an Eating Disorder: 10 Tips to Help You Get Through the Holiday.

photo courtesy of bhg.com/holidays

Published by Kate Clemmer
November 24th, 2009 in CED Events, Editor's Picks, In the News, Nutrition
0 Comments

Tips for Overcoming Holiday Stress and Anxiety – Part I: The Food

As Thanksgiving arrives and the holiday season officially begins, figuring out how to navigate social situations, particularly those involving high levels of stress, is necessary to maintaining a positive, healthy outlook. One of the most difficult areas to manage is the social eating aspect of the holiday season. Thanksgiving, a day almost entirely devoted to food in some households, can be especially stressful for people who struggle with eating on a daily basis such as those with eating disorders or anyone with disordered eating behaviors. With that in mind, we came up with some tips to help you make this Thanksgiving a positive one.  

One of the most helpful things that you can do for yourself is to plan ahead. Having a solid plan in place can prevent foreseeable things from becoming a bigger issue than they need to be. Your plan should be specific to your own needs depending on your individual triggers and whether you are hosting an event, traveling to see family or celebrating in a non-traditional way, but here are a few helpful hints and ideas that can help everyone enjoy the holiday…

Part I: When it comes to the FOOD:

  • Skipping breakfast is never a good idea for anyone. Starting the morning with a solid meal will help provide you with clarity of mind and a better awareness of your body’s hunger and satiety cues throughout the day.
  • It is helpful to maintain structure with regard to your meals particularly if you will be having your meals away from your home environment. If you are staying with others, letting them know that you will be eating three regular meals and a snack allows them to plan accordingly and can provide you with some helpful accountability.  That being said, remember that eating “treats” and “extras” is a normal and healthy part of the holidays so be sure that your plan includes flexibility in this area.
  • Depending on when your holiday meal is scheduled, you may also want to be flexible with the timing of your snack. For example, if there is a larger period of time between breakfast and lunch, eating your snack midway between that time will help keep your body and your mind nourished and balanced.
  • Remember that there are no “good” or “bad” foods, even at a holiday meal, but be prepared for others to make comments about food, weight gain/loss and diets during holiday gatherings.  Decide how you will respond if this happens. A range of responses could include a silent mantra that you say to yourself in your head or a public comment that educates others about normal eating and positive body image.  Ask yourself which type of response will be most benefical for your own personal well-being and use that as a guide.
  • When its time for the meal, try to sit near people with whom you feel comfortable and supported. If this isn’t possible, try to avoid sitting directly by those who will make the meal more challenging.

*Are you hosting?  Use crafty name cards to subtly “announce” seating arrangements that place your positive support people near you and your most triggering family members further away during the meal.

To get more information on portion sizes and how to have a balanced holiday meal, take a look at Nutrition Tips for a Healthy and Happy Holiday!

Check back tomorrow for “Part II: When it comes to the STRESS”

photo courtesy of bhg.com/holidays

Published by Kate Clemmer
November 23rd, 2009 in Celebrity Topical News
0 Comments

The Role of The Family in Eating Disorders

“It’s all my fault.”

“I was always dieting and watching what I ate.  That must be the reason!”

“I must have been too strict – I pushed her too hard.”

“Maybe if I wasn’t always saying how I hope she doesn’t get my body shape, this would not have happened?”

Do any of these statements sound familiar?  If they do, you are not alone.  Parents of children with eating disorders often wonder if they said or did something that may have caused their child to develop the eating disorder.  Many times, this can lead to considerable guilt and frustration in parents who wonder, if they had just done something differently, maybe the eating disorder wouldn’t have surfaced in their child.  The Academy of Eating Disorders (AED) recently released a position paper that clarifies the role of the family in the acquisition and treatment of eating disorders and addresses many of the concerns expressed above.  

Most importantly, this position paper points out that there is no data to support the idea that anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN) are caused by a certain type of family dynamic, parenting style or “anorexigenic” family system.  However, there IS strong evidence that family based treatment for younger patients, implemented early on in their illness, leads to positive results and improvements in conjunction with professionally guided family intervention.  

In its position statement, the Academy conveys what we already know  – just how important families are for the healthy development of a child.  When that developmental process is interrupted for any number of reasons the first line of defense against lasting negative effects should be the child’s family.  The case of a child or adolescent with an eating disorder is no exception; the Academy recommends and endorses that families be included in the treatment of younger patients with eating disorders.

In the 1970’s, research and work at the Maudsley Hospital in London began to reshape the way families were seen and included them as part of the treatment team for their child with AN. There was a shift away from blaming the family in some way for the child’s illness, to looking at how to empower the family in the processes of healing their child.  This current model for the treatment of AN and BN is an educational, supportive model that teaches and supports the emotional language of family, helping them learn to communicate and navigate through the conflicts and differences of opinion that arise during treatment and in normal adolescent development.

The Center for Eating Disorders at Sheppard Pratt supports the position of the AED and provides family based treatment for individuals and their families who could benefit from this approach.  We agree that families can be the child’s strongest resource in the road to recovery.   

If you are the parent of a child or adolescent with an eating disorder and would like to find out more about outpatient family based treatment options, please call (410) 938-5252.

 The Academy for Eating Disorders is a global professional association committed to leadership in eating disorders research, education, treatment, and prevention.  Read the complete AED position paper here: The Role of the Family in Eating Disorders

Written and submitted by Debbi Jacobs, LCSW-C,  outpatient family therapist at The Center for Eating Disorders.

Published by Kate Clemmer
November 19th, 2009 in Celebrity Topical News
0 Comments

Don’t Weigh In On This Technology!

On the heels of the Smartphone controversy, another piece of technology is further enabling people to obsess and lament over their weight.  The difference this time is that, instead of a private obsession with the number on the scale, this piece of modern equipment broadcasts a person’s weight for all to see over their twitter page. 

The technology in this case, happens to be a bathroom scale with a wireless connection to the internet.  The company behind this gimmick, contends that by automatically programming your bathroom scale to share results of each weigh-in with your entire social network via a twitter page or website, you will be more motivated to lose weight.  This technology gives unwarranted and unhealthy power to the number on the scale.  Even the LA Times Online article addressing the issue, touches on the questionable utility of this product but goes on to imply that one’s weight, as told by the scale, may be equally, or even more, relevant and revealing than how much debt a person owes or whether one has achieved their life dreams.  We, at The Center for Eating Disorders strongly disagree.  Weight is not a good indicator of health, beauty, or self-worth and should not be a determinant of success in a personal OR public forum. 

The weight-tweeting bathroom scale gets a big thumbs down from us.  Read the article and tell us what you think on our CED facebook page or CED twitter page.  We’d much rather hear from YOU than your bathroom scale! 

photo courtesy of whitezine.com

Published by Kate Clemmer
November 13th, 2009 in Body Image, Editor's Picks, In the News, Nutrition
0 Comments