Eating Disorders & Nutrition

Eating disorders can be conceptualized as emotional disorders. As such, a primary objective in eating disorder treatment is to support individuals in learning therapeutic skills to build awareness of their emotional experiences and to learn how to build emotional tolerance without engaging in strategies of avoidance (e.g., eating disorder symptoms) when experiencing uncomfortable emotions or situations.

Meal support can be described as emotional support that can occur before, during, and after meals. The purpose of meal support is to provide individuals with support in consistently nourishing their body to meet their individualized needs while strengthening their emotional awareness, improving emotional tolerance, and increasing the variety of foods from all food groups.

As a support, it may be helpful to gain an understanding of your loved one’s nutritional needs and what their dietary providers are recommending. Your loved one may be recommended to follow a meal plan and have established mealtime goals personalized for their treatment needs. Consistency and collaboration are very important when discussing meal planning, preparation, and timing of meals:

• Establish consistent times for when meals will occur. (e.g., breakfast will be at 8am, lunch will be at 12pm, afternoon snack will be at 3pm, and dinner will be at 5pm).
• Planning out what the meals will be in advance. Planning meals ahead of time can help normalize eating consistently throughout the day and reduce distressful surprises that may interfere with completion.
• Giving your loved one options can be helpful, but make sure to not overwhelm them with too many options.

During meals, your loved one might be observed struggling with distressing emotions, experiencing difficult physical sensations, or using food rituals (e.g., ordered eating, cutting things up into tiny pieces, eating very slowly or quickly, pushing food around the plate). These food rituals serve the function of dampening or escaping unwanted aspects of their emotional experience.

Helpful meal support tips during mealtimes are as follows:

• Eat the same meal with appropriate portions, to the best of your ability.
• Refrain from placing any judgment on foods or labeling foods as “healthy” versus “unhealthy”.
• Generate a list of safe topics to discuss to keep table discussion neutral and unrelated to food, eating disorder topics, and diet culture-related topics.

To access the full article on meal support for eating disorders, click here.  

Useful links:

1. Nutrition Counseling for Eating Disorders
2. Nutrition Therapy in Eating Disorder Treatment