Getting Your Teen with an Eating Disorder Ready for the First Day Back at School

Getting ready for school with eating disorder [Image description: drawing of a boy with a backpack and lunch box and there is a purple school bus in the background] Represents a teen or child with an eating disorder in Los Angeles, California

It’s almost the first day of school, and parents of students with eating disorders have additional concerns to address on top of the usual back-to-school frenzy. Transitions can be tough for all teens—they are especially difficult for those with eating disorders. However, there are some preparations you can make to help things go more smoothly. …

Read more

FBT Treatment Team Members

FBT Treatment Team Including Therapist, Dietitian, and Medical Doctor in Los Angeles, California [Image description: Purple scrabble tiles spelling "FBT Treatment Team"]

Family-based treatment (FBT) is the leading evidence-based treatment for teens with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. In an ideal world, every person with an eating disorder would have access to a full treatment team. This team could include a therapist, a dietitian, a medical doctor, and a psychiatrist. However, manualized FBT calls only for a …

Read more

When Your Teen With an Eating Disorder is Sick….

When your teen with an eating disorder is sick during recovery [Image description: drawing of a daughter in bed and appears ill and her mother is holding her head and a thermometer] Represents a parent caring for a teen with an eating disorder in Los Angeles, California

Guest post by Dr. Jennifer Johnson What if Your Teen With an Eating Disorder is Sick? One of the most common questions that arise when parents are renourishing a teen with an eating disorder is what to do when they get sick. Parents are sometimes totally overwhelmed when that happens. Some families may back off …

Read more

This Halloween, Serve Candy to Your Teen in Recovery

Halloween Candy

A Family-Based Treatment (FBT)-approach Halloween can be scary for teens with eating disorders for the wrong reason: the candy! Most teens with eating disorders are only willing to eat a restricted range of foods. Expanding this range is an important goal of treatment, with the reintroduction of fear foods being a key step. Candy tends …

Read more

Family-Based Treatment Can Help Depression and Self-Esteem Too!

FBT Depression and Self-Esteem

  Family-Based Treatment Family-based treatment (FBT) is the leading evidence-based treatment for teen eating disorders. It represents a paradigm shift from older treatments that focused on helping teens become independent from their parents in order to recover from their eating disorders. In FBT, parents are central members of the treatment team. Parents are charged with …

Read more

On Empowering Parents—Not Pathologizing Them

Empowering Parents

I often write about the importance of including parents in the treatment of adolescents and young adults. My work is informed by my training in Family-based Treatment (FBT). A central component of this treatment is empowering parents to help their ailing children with eating disorders return to health. When asked why families should be the …

Read more

How To Choose A Supplemental Nutrition Shake

Nutritional Supplements for Eating Disorder Recovery - Katie Grubiak, RDN in Los Angeles, California [Image description: Photo of a smiling, red-headed, white woman, Katie Grubiak, RDN, eating lunch and surrounded by all the nutritional supplements we tasted]

By Katie Grubiak, RDN at Side by Side Nutrition (formerly at EDTLA) Choosing a nutrition shake to support eating disorder recovery can be a daunting process. In a previous post, we discussed the role of supplemental nutritional shakes in eating disorder recovery. Sometimes, patients in recovery will be unable to restore their nutrition entirely with …

Read more

Nutritional Supplement Shakes in Eating Disorder Recovery

Child Drinking a Nutritional Supplement [Image description: drawing of a girl drinking a milkshake from a cup] Depicts a potential girl with an eating disorder such as ARFID in Los Angeles, California drinking a nutritional supplement

By Lauren Muhlheim, PsyD and Katie Grubiak, RDN Nutritional supplement shakes commonly support eating disorder recovery. In this post, we will discuss what they are and how to use them. In our next post, we will taste-test the different brands and formulations of nutritional shakes on the market, share our opinions, and help you decide …

Read more

Checking Our Own Weight Biases as Parents

  Weight bias is a preference for thinness. In the words of psychologist Ashley Solomon, Psy.D., CEDS, “Weight bias is insidiously interwoven into the fabric of our culture.” Like many of us, I grew up in a family that possesses a great deal of weight bias. When I gained weight just before puberty my mother …

Read more

Presentation at NEDA 2015 conference

Lauren and Katie presenting NEDA 2015

Katie and I had the honor of presenting in the Individual, Family, and Friends track at the National Eating Disorder Association Conference in San Diego yesterday.  The title of our talk was:  Family Based Nutrition Therapy:  Creating A Supportive Environment.  It was a chance to share the way we work to support families who are …

Read more

Skip to content