Family-based therapy (FBT) is the most established treatment for anorexia nervosa among children and adolescents. FBT empowers family members to engage in the treatment process and focuses on restoring the physical health of a young person.
Parenting – and parents’ own relationships with food and their bodies – can have a big impact on how young people feel about themselves and their bodies. Some parental behaviours can encourage body positivity and positive relationships with food, while others may make the development of disordered eating behaviours more likely.
When you greet a friend, family member, or even a stranger, it might feel normal to compliment their appearance. Compliments are usually well-intended: we want the other person to feel good about themselves.
Many young people now take part in ‘clean eating’, a type of diet that involves eating foods considered to be healthy, unprocessed, or without certain ingredients like added sugar or saturated fats. Clean eating is often framed as a health pursuit – a way of eating that is good for the body and mental health.
For young people who have experienced trauma, symptoms of PTSD or unprocessed trauma can underlie eating disorder symptoms, sustaining disordered eating behaviours and, if untreated, acting as barriers to lasting recovery.
Eating disorders are serious conditions that cause harm to the mental, physical, and social lives of young people. There’s no such thing as a “mild” eating disorder and some types of eating disorders can be fatal if left untreated. This means that understanding how to choose good treatment is really important.
Eating disorders are one type of mental health disorder that seem to affect autistic young people more than other people. Young autistic people may show different disordered eating behaviours, such as using food to cope with emotions or placing a lot of their self-value on body shape or weight.
When we think of eating disorders, we usually associate them with Western perceptions of an ‘ideal’ body. For a feminine body, Western ideals typically promote
While eating disorders and social anxiety can be debilitating for young people, the good news is that both disorders are treatable. With the right support, teenagers and adolescents can manage and recover from difficult symptoms and lead fulfilling lives.
It’s normal for young people to have goals that they want to achieve. Aims and targets can help teenagers and adolescents to feel motivated and
We can think of families as systems, where the well-being and behaviours of each family member affect all the rest, and the family system as
Most young people play video games sometimes. But when gaming starts to dominate a young person’s life, it can be a sign of addiction. Gaming
Exam stress is common among young people around the world. Pressure from teachers, schools, family members and wider society can make young people feel like
