Nutrition Therapy for People with Eating Disorders

Our Approach to Treatment

The Nutrition Department offers nutrition therapy for those suffering from eating disorders and/or disordered eating.

Our team of highly qualified and experienced registered dietitians offer nutrition therapy to help patients overcome many types of disordered eating, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating, overeating and emotional eating. We work with children, adolescents and adults in a supportive, encouraging and non-judgmental way. The goal of treatment is to help you stabilize your medical condition, normalize your food intake, create healthier eating behaviors and develop a healthy relationship with food.

Appointments

The initial individual nutrition therapy assessment session lasts 75 minutes. This session includes a comprehensive assessment of eating patterns and typical food intake, weight history, disordered eating history, exercise patterns, body image concerns, supplement use and identification of any gastrointestinal symptoms.

Follow-up visits may be weekly or less frequent and last between 20 to 45 minutes depending on a patient's individual needs.

We work together with patients and their families, if appropriate, to tailor the focus of the treatment program, as well as the frequency of follow-up visits. The goals and strategies of treatment are unique to each patient and are developed with the assistance of a registered dietitian

What is covered during a typical nutrition therapy session?

• Nutrition education, including how much and what kinds of carbohydrates, proteins and fats your body needs
  
• Education on metabolic rate and the effect that restricting, bingeing, purging and yo-yo dieting have on your metabolism
  
• Identification of beliefs about food, weight and body issues that might be contributing to the disordered behaviors
  
• Understanding of internal and external cues related to food and body
  
• Structured meal plans using an exchange system when appropriate
  
• Overcoming challenges with fear foods and social-eating environments, as well as learning how to feel comfortable eating in all types of social settings
  
• Portion size education and how to eat in a balanced, moderate way with an increasing variety of foods
  
• Intuitive eating or a non-diet approach where you create a healthy relationship with food, mind and body; learn how to distinguish between physical and emotional hungers; make peace with all foods and decrease your time spent thinking about food
  
• Healthy exercise goals including how much exercise you need to be healthy
  
• Nutritional supplement assessment, requirements and/or recommendations

Eating disorders are complex conditions with multiple causes, all of which require a team of health professionals to support and help the patient through recovery. PAMF's nutrition therapy team which includes a nutrition therapist/registered dietitian, works to collaborate with the patient’s primary care physician, psychiatrist and psychotherapist.

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