“I saw natural joy in my child for the first time in a long while.”
Mom of 12 year old boy with anorexia
Your dedicated, virtual, five-person care team
Evidence-based treatment built to integrate with everyday life
Therapist
Physician
Peer mentor
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Family mentor
Dietitian
Treatment should be affordable and accessible.
5 million
Americans will develop an eating disorder this year
You’re not alone
Eating disorders are up 70% since the start of the pandemic, affecting all genders, races, ethnicities, ages and socio-economic groups
This is serious
Eating disorders have the 2nd highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses
Early treatment is critical
Getting the right help as early as possible means lower likelihood of relapse and higher likelihood of lasting recovery
We’ve been there.
Equip was built by clinical experts in the eating disorder field and people in lasting recovery.
Why Equip
Evidence-Based Treatment – Amplified
We use the Family Based Treatment (FBT) method – the most effective evidence-based care for young people – to empower families to help loved ones overcome their eating disorders.
Learn more about FBT
Dedicated 5-Person Team
Each patient has a dedicated team including a peer mentor, family mentor, physician, therapist and dietitian, for a comprehensive circle of care that stays with your family.
Build a Life Worth Living While Living Life
Equip's treatment is accessible, affordable, and fits around your family so your family doesn't have to fit life around treatment.
Virtual By Design
Virtual care frees up time and resources for your family to pursue everyday activities and be invested in life -- through friendships, hobbies, and all that makes life worth living.
Is it an eating disorder or a phase?
Learn moreEating disorder causes are complex, and not as important as getting the right treatment.
1
Eating disorders are complex brain disorders with strong genetic, neurobiological and psychological underpinnings. No single person, experience, or issue causes an eating disorder. They often co-occur with and can be hidden by anxiety disorders, depression, OCD, PTSD, and substance use disorder. The good news is that we don't need to know the exact cause of your child's eating disorder to treat it effectively.
2
Researchers are still learning what triggers or "turns on" eating disorders in the brain. For many, it seems to come from a negative energy balance caused from more calories out than in which can be triggered by a diet, over-exercise, stomach bug, or surgery. Once that imbalance occurs, a switch flips in the brain, turning the eating disorder on and tyrannizing the brain.
3
Many people use disordered eating behaviors, such as bingeing, purging, excessive exercise, and restricting, to help regulate or soothe their emotions – similar to the use of alcohol or self-harm to escape difficult feelings. When these behaviors are used frequently to manage emotions, it goes from 'disordered eating' to being an 'eating disorder.'
4
Societal and cultural factors such as the pandemic, diet culture, and social media can trigger an eating disorder for those with a genetic predisposition and/or can trigger big emotions that people try to combat with disordered behaviors.
“I feel like I can exhale for the first time since this nightmare started and I am very grateful.”
Father of 8th grader with bulimia - week 2 of treatment
Recovery is possible and within reach
Does your loved one have an eating disorder?
In the Press
“Equip is Saffran’s brainchild, created in collaboration with cofounder Erin Parks, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and researcher. Traditional mental health does not yet differentiate between treatment that feels good and treatment that actually works. And randomized clinical trials have shown that children, adolescents, and young adults who receive FBT are more likely to recover.”
“It has been really the privilege of our lifetimes to start Equip and watch people get better. The lights are coming back on. Kids are remembering who they are outside their eating disorder.”
“Equip was set up as a fully virtual program in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic moved much of mental healthcare online out of necessity. Its model, Saffran says, removes the challenge of getting one’s child to and from outpatient appointments…"
“Instead of removing the patient from the home, Equip uses a virtual, family-based treatment model to build recovery into daily schedules.”
“During the pandemic, eating disorders skyrocketed among teens. Now, investors are putting their money behind a relatively new startup that hopes to help kids and young adults work with their families to recover from this ailment. “
“Equip offers virtual family-based treatment, which utilizes what Parks described as the "radical idea that families are best equipped to help their loved one recover from an eating disorder."
“By utilizing telehealth, Equip families bring their full village into treatment: parents, step-parents, grandparents, siblings, friends — with everyone aligned to fight the eating disorder. This allows families to support their loved one with a united front even with different households, demanding jobs, and multiple children”.
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“Generalized therapy may only cover the psychological component of an eating disorder, but Equip combines psychiatric, dietary, medical, practical, and therapeutic support for the best results.”
“We took the vital core of FBT—empowering families to feed their loved one and get them into recovery— and made it virtual so it can work with the schedules of busy families.”