How to Navigate Eating Disorders

This introductory session outlines eating disorders, including the nine categories, and the spectrum of behaviors. It highlights the course goals: building evidence-based knowledge, communication, and support skills.

Explores prevalence and demographics of eating disorders across genders, age groups, ethnicities, and religions. Emphasizes underreporting, puberty and hormonal changes, and the need for early prevention across diverse populations.

Identify key risk factors for eating disorders, including body size, trauma, comorbid diagnoses like ADHD or autism, elite athletics, gender, and genetics. Avoid dieting in households to reduce risk.

Explore how eating disorders are quantified through appearance, lab work, and behaviors, and learn why visual health alone can mislead diagnoses and the transition from healthy to unhealthy eating patterns.

Explore how eating disorder categories map onto three core behaviors—binging, restricting, and purging—covering anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, atypical anorexia, osfed, arfid, and rarer types.

Explain the purpose of eating disorders as coping mechanisms and a shout for help. Highlight inner state expression, desire for control and predictability, and identity coping through personal narratives.

Explore the two pillars of recovery—physical and psychological—in eating disorders, with real stories of weight restoration, lab normalization, and cognitive shifts toward healthier body image.

Explore how anyone can develop an eating disorder, assess higher-risk factors, visualize behaviors across categories, note that recovery is possible and paths vary by person, and complete the pre-session survey.

Identify triggers of eating disorders by examining anxiety, adult trauma, and social media, and review survey results, expert videos, and a q&a session.

Hosts introduce psychologist Norman Kim and psychiatrist Megan Quinn, highlighting their work on eating disorders, DEI and advocacy across Columbia, NYU, and military-focused treatment programs.

Define triggers as events or situations that can prompt onset or worsen eating disorder symptoms. Distinguish disordered eating from eating disorders amid risk factors and comorbidities.

Explore survey results on triggers of eating disorders and examine a range of triggers as we dive into several examples across the course's 12 sessions.

Present eating disorders as transdiagnostic anxiety disorders on a spectrum, rooted in evolved anxiety patterns, with avoidance, obsessive thoughts, and ritual behaviors.

Explore transdiagnostic core psychological characteristics across eating disorders, including perfectionism, rigidity, hypervigilance, and anxiety-driven traits, and their evolutionary roots and impact.

Examine how extreme sensitivity and poor emotional modulation fuel anxiety in eating disorders, triggering aversive emotions, avoidance, and cycles of worry, compulsions, and self-harm.

Anxiety underpins eating disorders, with significant comorbidity and cross heritability across categories. Core compensatory behaviors function as safety strategies for obsessive thoughts, and education fosters safety and informed treatment.

Explore the evolutionary underpinnings of eating disorders, showing how traits may be adaptive and protective. The lecture segues to the role of adult trauma.

Explore how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) shape adult trauma and eating disorders in military contexts. Discuss combat and non-combat factors, BMI criteria, and underreporting shaping diagnosis and treatment.

Explore non-combat military trauma, including military sexual trauma and moral injury, and how these exposures relate to eating disorders across first responders and medical students, with underreporting and prevalence data.

Explains interpersonal trauma as a breach of trust between two people that creates a lack of safety, fueling hypervigilance, anxiety, and emotional dysregulation linked to eating disorders and PTSD.

Examine adult trauma and military eating disorders that appear healthy outwardly, such as atypical anorexia, atypical bulimia, night eating, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating, plus co-occurring PTSD and depression.

Trauma disrupts emotion regulation, driving disordered eating as a way to regulate affect. Despite varying links across traumas, the association is evident, prompting screening and follow-up in military contexts.

Explore how social media content and algorithms shape body image and eating disorders, including moderation efforts to hide pro-eating-disorder content, social comparison, thin-ideal internalization, self-objectification, and cyberbullying.

Explore the role of social media in body image with expert insights from Doctor Charlotte Marquis of Rutgers University and Doctor Nicole Hawkins, plus resources to deepen your understanding.

Explore how childhood trauma contributes to the development of eating disorders through a 15 minute video by Amy Pershing, available via email as a resource for this course.

Explore vicarious trauma and PTSD risks, social media's impact on body image, and key distinctions among eating disorders for school-based prevention and early warning signs.

Attend next week's panel to hear what it's like to have an eating disorder from a diverse group of speakers, and thank doctors Kim and Quinn for volunteering their time.

Join a panel of survivors sharing personal journeys to navigate eating disorders, reflecting on anxiety, social media trauma, and the path toward healing.

Panelists introduce themselves with name, age, origin, pronouns, and eating disorder type, sharing diverse experiences from orthorexia to ARFID and anorexia.

Understand that eating disorders affect people of all ages and appearances as a mental illness, not just a weight or food issue, and you can't tell by looking.

Eating disorders serve as coping and control mechanisms in our lives, later becoming an addiction and a safety net that helps numb decades of unexpressed emotions, especially under military deployment.

Explore early signs of disordered eating, from body dysmorphic disorder to arfid and purging disorder, and discuss diagnosis challenges and the lifelong link between food and exercise.

Listen to a male survivor share how eating disorders develop in men, the delayed diagnosis due to stigma, and how recovery relies on male mentorship and addressing isolation.

Discusses how multiple factors, such as family dieting patterns, body dysmorphic thoughts, and childhood abuse, combine to raise the risk for an eating disorder, and emphasizes seeking support.

Explore how eating disorders affect women in midlife, highlighting prevalence, stigma, and barriers to care, and emphasize that recovery is possible at any age with supportive, outpatient treatment.

Explore how body dysmorphic disorder and eating disorder intertwine, linked by skin and weight concerns, OCD patterns, and the urge to control the uncontrollable, with self-acceptance strategies.

Explore how military culture and public weigh-ins amplify eating disorders and perfectionism, shaping treatment, recovery, and transitions back to active duty.

The lecture contrasts recovery and healing in eating disorders, exploring personal views on being 90–95 percent recovered and the goal of a lifelong, active healing process.

Describe recovery in two words through rapid-fire student reflections. Highlight phrases like beautiful mess, freedom and authenticity, a journey, a test of strength, chaotic but wonderful.

Identify the diverse people and personal practices that sustain recovery from eating disorders, including therapists, dietitians, peer support, family, a close friend, and self-led tools like journaling and meditation.

Explore how social media shapes eating disorder experiences and recovery, from the impact of likes and body image to the benefits of recovery-focused communities and responsible use.

Learn to do the next right thing, be willing to do whatever it takes for recovery, and recognize recovery is holistic and not just about food; seek a GP diagnosis.

Appreciate your openness and courage in joining our panel discussion; your willingness to share experiences adds depth to our course and enriches dialogue with personal journeys and scientific research.

Join next week's discussion to gain insights from a loved one's perspective on eating disorders, and participate to show your interest in learning more.

Explore resilience, compassion, and support networks empowering those caring for someone with an eating disorder. Understand ripple effects on families and friends and the role of support in recovery.

Meet the pillars of support for someone navigating eating disorders as a panel shares experiences and insights from the Mind Blossom team and panelists who provide care and love.

Meet the panel and hear diverse family perspectives on eating disorders, sharing experiences to raise awareness, understanding, and empathy.

Identify early signs of eating disorders through changes in behavior, such as sudden weight loss and increased exercise away from home with limited food access.

Reflect on what families wish they had known about eating disorders, recognizing genetics and environment shape risk, and prioritizing nutritional rehabilitation and empathy to support loved ones.

Explore the emotional challenges of supporting a loved one with eating disorders, from heartbreak and frustration to isolation and the struggle to prioritize self-care and staying present for others.

Address mothers' emotions as they navigate a child's eating disorder, confronting shame and self-doubt with love and informed care to support recovery.

Explore how sisters navigate feeling overlooked during a sibling's recovery, and how parents address emotional needs with timing, therapy options, and family support.

Navigate grief as an ongoing, non-linear wave after a sister's death from anorexia, showing how empathy, personal reflection, and conversations with children and gymnasts aid healing.

The lecture examines how eating disorders strain and eventually strengthen family relationships, highlighting staying calm, fighting for loved ones, setting boundaries, and the lasting closeness that can emerge.

Navigate the community's negative reactions to a loved one's eating disorder, acknowledge external pressure, and emphasize education that eating disorders affect more than the stereotype of young white, blonde girls.

Explore the challenges of accessing care for eating disorders, including waitlists, 72-hour holds, and premature discharges, and highlight the role of family-based treatment and resource gaps.

Explore how ineffective reassurance fails to support a daughter with anorexia, and how emotion-focused family therapy teaches co-regulating emotions and validation to empower recovery.

Explore how a parent builds confidence while supporting a child with an eating disorder. Advocate for resources, apply core skills, and support early intervention to trust your intuition.

Explore why eating disorders are hard to understand and how time and research reveal physical and environmental factors, while accepting that some questions may never have answers.

Explore how to navigate eating disorders through trusted resources and networks, like feast, and caregiver, recovery, and sibling support groups, to share stories and debrief with your network.

Explore personal growth and insights from navigating eating disorders, focusing on knowledge, advocacy, empathy, correct language, education, strength, empowerment, compassion, and connection.

Acknowledge the panelists' courage and the power of their stories and insights in raising awareness and understanding of eating disorders within the community.

Explore eating disorders in minority groups and their atypical presentations in next week's lecture by Norman Kim.

Explore how eating disorders manifest in minority groups and atypical presentations, and learn to understand cultural nuances to provide effective support and care.

Hear from experts on eating disorders as psychologist Kim shares decades of program development and equity work, while Gina outlines nursing leadership at an eating disorder residential program.

The outline previews introductions and context. Dr. Kim discusses eating disorders in marginalized communities, followed by a question-and-answer session on the intersection of childhood autism and minority identities.

Explore what defines a minority group as underrepresentation and power dynamics, not just numbers. Intersectionality, a concept by Kimberlé Crenshaw, links multiple identities to higher risk of eating disorders.

Explore how colorism in India shapes body image and drives demand for skin whitening, contributing to body dysmorphic disorder and eating disorders.

Explore how intersectionality and positionality shape eating disorders in marginalized communities, highlighting privilege, stigma, and de-centering whiteness in access to voice and care.

Examine how shame, stigma, and fear around eating disorders amplify risk for marginalized communities, where discrimination, macro- and microaggressions, and minority stress compound vulnerability.

Discuss how eating disorders affect all backgrounds. Identify how discrimination and barriers limit care for minority groups, with higher bulimia and binge eating and low treatment rates.

Explore how colorism, race, and whiteness intersect with eating disorders, expanding focus beyond thinness to body image, objectification, and cultural pressures across marginalized groups.

Explore how weight and fat stigma stem from racism and anti-blackness. See how medical myths persist and affect eating disorder treatment for people of color.

Systemic barriers impede eating disorder treatment access, including under-diagnosis in communities of color and lack of universal healthcare, with high inpatient costs and limited provider diversity.

Explore how eating disorders intersect with autism and arfid, highlighting diverse minority experiences and the role of psychiatric nurse practitioners in assessment and treatment.

Explore culturally informed approaches to eating disorders and how religion, family structure, and minority contexts shape treatment, advocacy, and systemic change.

Explores the physiological consequences and comorbid diagnoses of eating disorders, featuring a registered dietitian and recovery perspectives to illuminate the deadliest disease affecting the body.

Explore the physiological consequences of eating disorders and comorbid diagnoses, featuring insights from guest dietitian Julie Cole and the Mind Blossom team.

Explore the physical and physiological impacts of eating disorders on various organs and the comorbid diagnoses, within a 12-week course.

I share a 15-year journey with an eating disorder, from hair loss and feeling full or hungry to recovery's emotional difficulty and relapse risk.

Explore the physical impact of malnutrition across eating disorders, including energy, macronutrient and micronutrient deficits, and effects on metabolism, thyroid function, heart rate, sleep, and digestion.

Explore how hydration affects eating disorders, detailing dehydration, overhydration, electrolyte imbalance, edema, and orthostatic hypotension, and discuss thirst, purging, and coping strategies such as sour candies.

Explore how electrolyte imbalances—calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium—affect the nervous system, thyroid, and heart, and understand refeeding syndrome, edema, and medical monitoring.

Explore how food intake affects energy and metabolism, and its impact on hair, nails, skin, muscles, and overall reproductive, cardiac, and gastrointestinal health during recovery from eating disorders.

Explore amenorrhea as a marker of reproductive health, its links to cardiovascular and skeletal health, including osteopenia and osteoporosis, with dexa scans and vitamin D.

Explore how eating disorders affect cardiac health, including orthostatic hypotension, blood pressure, and elevated heart rate from malnutrition. See how malnutrition reduces heart volume and pumping, increasing heart attack risk.

Explore gastrointestinal health in eating disorders, detailing vomiting-related esophageal tearing, reflux, and gastroparesis. Identify hydration, constipation, diarrhea, and malnutrition risks, and note management with digestive enzymes, bitters, and GI guidance.

During recovery, you may feel worse before better, with more thoughts and discomfort as the brain shifts away from eating-disorder behaviors; loved ones support you through stressors and relapse risk.

Explore how eating disorders co-occur with mental illnesses through comorbidity, highlighting anxiety disorders, mood disorders, OCD, PTSD, and substance use, and discuss causes, consequences, and treatment complexities.

Examine how chronic fatigue and hyperarousal arise in recovery, and how safety behaviors influence energy, hunger, and family and treatment team support.

Explore the neuroscience of eating disorders, delivered by a neuroscientist who takes ownership of the topic, noting the scarcity of experts in the field.

Explore how the brain triggers eating disorders, and examine the disease and its treatment within today's outline.

Explore how politics and funding shape eating disorder research, revealing a publication gap across anorexia, bulimia, and related disorders and the need for greater policy-driven education.

Explore how eating disorders are rooted in biology and brain function, address knowledge gaps, challenge the choice myth, and affirm recovery is possible at the brain level.

Explore how genetic factors and environment contribute to eating disorders, including shared gene overlaps with other diagnoses, and the role of neuroticism, shaping risk and outcomes.

Interpersonal trauma and environment influence eating disorders by activating genetic predispositions through epigenetics, altering stress pathways and brain neurotransmitters, with PTSD and trauma as key factors.

Explore how neurons communicate at synapses, how neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine shape brain regions and homeostasis, and why eating disorders involve complex, noncausal brain mechanisms.

Explore how the brain operates as interconnected circuits—the reward, decision making, and behavioral control circuits—that shape eating behaviors and disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.

Discover that brain function can normalize with recovery from anorexia, and that treatment reshapes safety behaviors and coping mechanisms to alter neural circuits.

Advocate for eating disorder care and policies, and for organizations like BRC. Recognize triggers, genetics, interpersonal trauma, and serotonin and dopamine brain circuits; treatment can restore function.

Join five therapists, spanning MD psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists with PhDs, as they discuss five treatment modalities used to treat eating disorders.

Meet five expert clinicians who discuss the types of treatments available for people with eating disorders.

Explore five evidence-based eating disorder treatments presented by expert speakers, including cognitive behavioral therapy with mindfulness, cognitive processing therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and family-based therapy.

Explore various evidence-based therapies for eating disorders and learn how to choose the right option with guidance from specialists, based on foundational knowledge and expert insights.

Leverage cognitive processing therapy to address trauma and co-occurring eating disorder symptoms. Use CBT, Socratic questioning, and a 12-session protocol to challenge distortions and reduce eating behaviors as coping.

Explore acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a third wave behavioral model that uses mindfulness and values to strengthen psychological flexibility and guide committed action in eating disorder treatment.

Dialectical behavior therapy is an evidence-based treatment for eating disorders that targets binging and purging by combining acceptance and change with mindfulness, validation, and skills training.

The Maudsley method, or family-based therapy, empowers parents to refeed adolescents at home through structured meals across three phases—weight restoration, gradual control, and healthy identity—while navigating boundaries and potential barriers.

Learn to evaluate therapy effectiveness for eating disorders, decide when to switch modalities, and match CPT, DBT, ACT, mindfulness, and FBT to disorders and co-occurring conditions, with weight restoration.

Explore the levels of treatment for eating disorders and how to choose the right care, featuring experts in outpatient, inpatient, and residential settings.

Explore the different levels of eating disorder therapy and the areas each level covers, followed by a Q&A to clarify concepts and next steps.

Outline five levels of eating disorder treatment from hospital stabilization to residential, day programs, outpatient care, and coaching—and determine right level, when to escalate, and involve primary care and dietitians.

Navigate hospital and residential treatment options for eating disorders using Red Sea guidelines to tailor care levels, medical stability, nutrition, and transitions to outpatient care.

Explore day programs for eating disorders, including PHP and IOP, with structured meals, daily activities, and team support. Programs involve families, address comorbidity, and adapt to virtual and in-person formats.

Outpatient treatment for eating disorders varies by age, with family-based or cognitive-based approaches, medical oversight, weekly therapy, and flexible options including group and multi-family programs.

Coaching serves as a powerful adjunct to the outpatient team, guiding real-time behavior changes, meal plan implementation, and support across care levels, with personalized, goal-driven collaboration from therapists and dietitians.

Discover how to locate evidence-based eating disorder care, from CBT and family-based treatment to building a support team, while communicating compassionately with youth globally.