faulker053

We will all rest more easily if we air these 'pet' peeves. Radio show host, Brooklyn Kitchen store owner and foodie Harry Rosenblum wants to know my food related pet peeves. He'll be interviewing me on March 16th on Feast Yr Ears about eating disorders and recovery with a particular interest in Cate and my book, Food to Eat : guided, hopeful & trusted recipes for eating disorder recovery . Pet peeves. Funny he should have asked; 'Thursday's patient' was just suggesting this for a blog post. We all have them. Pet peeves are those things that drive us crazy that people and companies say and do that make us want to scream. But most of you don't scream, or even express your outrag e. You might be annoyed, infuriated even, but you just keep it quiet and say nothing. Maybe you ruminate about it, or binge eat or don't eat at all. "I'll show them" may be your thinking. So readers, here's your prompt to share those things that piss you off....

If you share my frustration please share this post with those that need to see it. Dear Insurance Company, I wish you could see what I see. I wish you could know how much work it requires to motivate an adult living with an eating disorder to trust enough to agree to enter a program. Everything is against their entering treatment—taking time off from work if their job will even allow it, getting coverage for their kids, telling people they know when their eating disorder is often their own secret, and enduring the shame of acknowledging that they are actually struggling with this disease—the shame of feeling that they ought to be over this by now. And the shame that comes with not fitting into society’s skewed perspective of what someone with an eating disorder looks like—because even those of normal weight and BMI can live silently with an eating disorder. Image what it’s like to then have your patient dumped from program. Sound harsh? Well that’s how it feels, both to them and to us ...

I want your input. I need to hear your voices. For EDAW 2015, I have volunteered to present to two medical residency programs—one in Boston, MA and one in Providence, RI on what doctors need to know about eating disorders.  I've incorporated recommendations from twitter responders and from Aspire , but I welcome more input. Here's what I have to share with new doctors so far: Avoid the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach .   Patients rarely volunteer behaviors they feel ashamed of—bingeing, purging, diet pill and laxative abuse.   So providers need to ask. Nicely. Casually. Non-judgmentally. Include basic ED screening questions at routine visits. Early action is not just for college admissions . Eating disorders are best identified early and treated promptly. We wouldn’t simply wait it out to see if blood sugars simply turn around in a patient with type 1 diabetes. Take eating disorders as seriously as you would cancer, or The time is now for improving medical management of...

Debra came to me frustrated about her climbing weight, now about 20 pounds out of her normal range. This is nothing unusual for me—plenty of women and many men reach this point, desperate for answers and guidance to help them take charge of their weight. Others present for help managing symptoms or medical outcomes—like high blood pressure or cholesterol or GERD that have more to do with the quality of their diet than with their weight. Debra was an active woman in her 50s, a non-emotional eater—yes, they do exist—who felt like she was doing most things right. She ate regular meals and snacks; she had to, as she started to feel really low energy, and fuzzy headed if she didn’t. And she’d start to get the sweats, too. She had a history of very high cholesterol, and a family history of Type 2 diabetes as well. And the weight she had previously maintained, her normal weight, was nothing crazy, nor did it require heroic measures to achieve it. Her goals were quite realistic. After reviewin...