As with all eating disorder treatment at Equip, the initial focus of anorexia treatment is normalizing eating habits, stopping eating disorder behaviors, and weight restoration if necessary.

We focus on these behavioral and nutritional aspects first and foremost, because it's difficult for patients to make progress in other areas when they're malnourished or actively engaging in eating disorder behaviors. When the body is malnourished, the brain is, too. A malnourished brain doesn’t think clearly or take in new information well. People who are malnourished are more likely to be depressed, anxious, and have trouble paying attention.

Once patients have been able to normalize their eating habits and make progress toward restoring their weight (if necessary), the focus of treatment can shift to other areas. That might mean working on interpersonal relationships, setting goals outside of their eating disorder, learning to handle triggers in their daily life, or understanding potential root causes of the eating disorder.

To accomplish all this, our clinicians use a variety of different evidence-based treatment modalities, including CBT-E (a form of cognitive behavioral therapy designed specifically for eating disorders), DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy), and ERP (exposure and response prevention). For younger patients who live with their family, we generally use FBT (family-based treatment).

Male anorexia is far more common than most people think, with men and boys accounting for about 25% of all patients with anorexia. Men and boys with anorexia often go undiagnosed for a long time (at least in part because of societal misconceptions around who gets anorexia), and so they often enter treatment in a more serious condition than their female counterparts. You can learn more about male anorexia on our blog.

Anorexia and bulimia share some similarities, but tend to present quite differently. Both are types of eating disorders that involve a preoccupation with body size and weight and a fear of gaining weight. However, while patients with anorexia restrict their food intake, those with bulimia engage in binge-purge cycles: eating large quantities of food and then purging the food through vomiting, laxatives, compulsive exercise, or other unhealthy means. You can learn more about anorexia and bulimia on our blog.

Atypical anorexia is an increasingly common yet underdiagnosed type of anorexia, in which a person has all or most of the symptoms of anorexia except for being at a low body weight. People with atypical anorexia may be in medium or large bodies. Atypical anorexia is a very serious condition, carries all the same health risks as “regular” anorexia, and should be treated as anorexia.

At Equip, we don’t condone or use the term “atypical anorexia”—it is simply anorexia. Any manifestation of anorexia, regardless of weight, is serious and life-threatening and needs the same treatment.

As frustrating as it is, there is rarely one identifiable cause of an eating disorder, and anorexia is no different. More often than not, it is a constellation of biological, psychological, and environmental factors: in other words, someone has a genetic predisposition to developing an eating disorder, and then the eating disorder is “turned on” by environmental factors such a diet, over-exercise, social stress, or even a stomach bug. But the good news is that we don't need to know the exact cause of your child's eating disorder to treat it effectively. You can learn more about the causes of eating disorders on our blog.