Help Your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder

Bestseller - more than 90,000 in print!

Tens of thousands of parents have turned to this compassionate guide for support and practical advice grounded in cutting-edge scientific knowledge. Top experts James Lock and Daniel Le Grange explain what you need to know about eating disorders, which treatments work, and why it is absolutely essential to play an active role in your teen's recovery: even though parents have often been told to take a back seat. Learn how to monitor your teen's eating and exercise, manage mealtimes, end weight-related power struggles, and partner successfully with health care providers. When families work together to get the most out of treatment and prevent relapse, eating disorders can be beat. This book is your essential roadmap. Featuring the latest research, resources, and diagnostic information, the second edition has been expanded to cover binge-eating disorder.

Key Features:

• a well regarded resource, now updated throughout to include the latest research and DSM 5 classifications.
• proven family based approach; based on the Maudsley method; is now directly available to parents.
• Lock and Le Grange are respected experts whose visibility has grown since the first edition was published.

Eating disorders are insidious and relapses are frequent. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric illnesses, but if caught within the first 2 years, chances for survival greatly increase. Armed with the information in this book, you will be better able to help a teenager beat their eating disorder.

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. Getting Started: First Steps Toward Helping Your Child with an Eating Disorder

1. Act Now
2. Get Together
3. Don't Waste Time on "Why?"

II. Understanding Eating Disorders

4. Know What You're Dealing With: The Complexity of Eating Disorders
5. Get into Your Child's Head: The Distorted Thinking Behind Your Teenager's Behavior
6. Understand Your Options: What the Research Says about the Best Ways to Treat Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge-Eating Disorder, and Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder

III. Making Treatment Work: How to Solve Everyday Problems to Help Your Child Recover

7. Taking Charge of Change: How to Apply Family-Based Treatment to Help with Eating Disorders
8. Playing a Supporting Role: Other Ways You Can Be a Part of Your Child's Recovery
9. Harnessing the Power of Unity: How to Stay on the Same Page in Your Fight against Eating Disorders
10. Staying Empowered and Informed: How to Work with Professionals Who Are Trying to Help Your Child

Resources

Further Reading

Index

About the Authors

"From two renowned clinician-researchers, this book offers plenty of useful information. Throughout, vignettes offer clear-cut advice on how to respond to the many issues parents encounter before, during, and after treatment. This book is suitable for anyone who wants to learn more about the impact of eating disorders on families, and how to help."
- W. Stewart Agras, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Stanford University

"Eating disorders can creep into your family life and take you by surprise. This book, written by two of the foremost clinicians in the field, illustrates the multifaceted nature of the problem and allows you to expand your resources based on their wisdom."
- Janet Treasure, PhD, FRCP, FRCPsych, Director, Eating Disorders Research Unit, Kings College London, United Kingdom

"The second edition has been fully updated to incorporate current diagnostic classifications for feeding and eating disorders and the latest research evidence. Lock and Le Grange use their wealth of academic expertise and clinical wisdom to offer parents empathy, understanding, and practical advice. Written in accessible language, the book is filled with realistic scenarios aimed at affirming and mobilizing parents to take action. Lock and Le Grange address many of the pervasive myths about eating disorders, assuage guilt, and offer hope to parents in the frightening early stages of the illness. Highly recommended."
- Dasha Nicholls, MBBS, MD, Feeding and Eating Disorders Service, Great Ormond Street Hospital and Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom