help-seeking

Disclosure and Pathways to Treatment in Eating Disorders

Andrea 7 Comments

We hear a fair bit about the length of time it can take to access eating disorder treatment. Delays are particularly distressing as the evidence points to better outcomes for those who receive timely care for their eating disorders (e.g. Treasure & Russell, 2011). We know about some of the potential barriers to care for eating disorders, including the lack of specialized services, the stereotypes and stigma that can impede formal and informal help-seeking, and the financial costs of seeking care not always covered by insurance. However, we know less about when people with eating disorders disclose their struggles, who they disclose to, and how this impacts their path to care.

When I was searching for articles related to treatment access for eating disorders, I came across a preliminary study published in 2012 by Gilbert and colleagues investigating disclosure of eating disorders and subsequent pathways to care. Because … Continue reading →

Eating Disorder Awareness Week: Useful, Useless, or Worse?

Tetyana

National Eating Disorder Awareness Week came and went (in the US, anyway). Posters were shared, liked, and tweeted. Pretty (but often misguided) infographics made the rounds on the internet. Local ED groups visited schools and college campuses to educate students about eating disorders. To, you know, increase awareness. 

The thing is, awareness is not always a good thing. For one, as Carrie over at ED Bites mentioned, there’s a whole lot of misinformation masquerading as fact. And two, awareness campaigns, even when the information in them is correct, may have unintended consequences, like, for example, increasing stigma or self-stigma.

Moreover, not all approaches to increasing awareness or decreasing stigma are equally effective, and the effectiveness of a particular approach may differ depending on the population studied.

So, what about the effectiveness of EDAW? In 2012, Kathleen Tillman and colleagues published a study looking at … Continue reading →