Eating is often viewed exclusively as a nutritional issue, but counselors can play an important role by helping clients unpack the emotional aspects of their relationship to food.
Tag: Eating Disorders
Even if they don’t specialize in eating disorders treatment, counselors need to be aware of common dilemmas related to clients who struggle with eating, weight and body image.
A growing body of research suggests counselors should no longer think of mental health in isolation but rather as part of a complex system that includes what people eat.
With January now behind us, the annual barrage of diet and fitness commercials has started to fade. Many people who made New Year’s resolutions to lose weight or “get fit” have already labeled themselves failures for indulging on leftover holiday chocolate and not making it to the gym more than
Every January, right as the new year begins, we are saturated by commercials for diets, advertisements for exercise machines and stories of people whose lives were transformed upon attaining the elusive goals of slimness and fitness. This message is an undercurrent throughout the entire year, of course; it just becomes
Today I ate a piece of chocolate cake, and I survived. This sounds silly, I know. But not too long ago, there were countless days in a row when I truly thought my life was measured by the number on the scale, the size of my jeans, the number of
Laura Choate, associate professor of counselor education at Louisiana State University, is the editor of Eating Disorders and Obesity: A Counselor’s Guide to Prevention and Treatment, a new book published by the American Counseling Association. Choate believes the book is a unique resource for counselors that sheds new light on
As the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) is set to be released in May, counselors are preparing for the changes that will come along with it, including the inclusion of binge eating disorder as a mental illness. Binge eating disorder had previously been listed
Given the extensive research on eating disorders, motivated clients and a gold standard treatment — cognitive behavior therapy — it is perplexing that recidivism rates remain so high for bulimia. It behooves us as counselors to investigate possible hindrances to effective treatment and adjust our approach accordingly for those clients
Statistics from the National Association for Anorexia and Associated Disorders reveal that up to 24 million people suffer from an eating disorder in the United States, and an estimated 10 to 15 percent of those cases are men. Although the number of men with eating disorders is higher now than it’s