Teen Eating Disorders - Thread 5

[myrtleWilson]

Welcome everyone,
Our last thread can be found here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eating_disorders/4279530-Teen-Eating-Disorders-Thread-4?watched=1&msgid=111172926#111172926

That we're on thread 5 in about a year is a reflection of the incredible increase in mental health issues, including eating disorders amongst young people over the last couple of years.

With that in mind, we thought we'd try to include some resources that have helped us along the way to date. No one resource will be a panacea but hopefully this list will be a useful starting off point for any newcomers and a reflection for others. It is our first go at sharing a list of resources on a thread so it won't be perfect!

www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk

anorexiafamily.com/?v=79cba1185463

www.youtube.com/evamusby

www.youtube.com/channel/UCa7G1P5WQopVMc9qTSP_lgA

www.orri-uk.com

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/feelings-symptoms-behaviours/behaviours/eating-disorders/overview/

www.stgeorges.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Junior-MARSIPAN-Risk-Assessment-Framework.pdf

People to look up on social media
Hope Virgo
Ro-Recovering
James Downs
Cara Lisette
Adam Fare
BarefootRebel
Ilona Burton

Girlie hope Covid is not too bad for your DD

Betty - great news on a gain!

dark how are you doing?

The rest of her day is spent lying on her bed or doing school work.

I don’t know if it’s relevant but me, my mum and my eldest daughter all went through a phase at around 15/16 of being very slim. Maybe it’s her natural metabolism that’s making weight gain tricky right now!

@Bettybarkalot123

She walks the dog for 20/30 mins most days and she does some activity at a club on a Saturday morning.. that’s it!

Is she walking alone?

Make sure she isn’t using the opportunity to sprint loops, star jumps etc

She is alone sometimes, but she walks the dog on a playing field which is very close to our house and she knows lots of people there, it’s rare we don’t bump into someone we know. I don’t think she would do that and she doesn’t come home looking hot or flustered.

Just something to keep alert to

And in her bedroom too. That’s she’s not knocking out 1000 push ups quietly for example

Betty for decent weight gain calories need to closer to 3000 a day, keep pushing portion sizes and adding calories every which way you can.

Moom I'm not surprised they've said that tbh, I think you have to use school as leverage and say once you're eating and healthy we can get you back to school. My dds plan is tweaked slightly from a normal 3 plus 3 plan as we lost snacks last Christmas so I focused on getting calories in during the meals. My dd has;

Porridge made with double cream and ff milk, a large portion and I estimate around 700 calories. Small glass of smoothie to drink.

Lunch a tuna Mayo baguette with lots of butter, a bag of crisps, a small cake or a small yogurt and a glass of juice to drink. Again around 700 calories in total.

Afternoon snack is a cereal bar.

Dinner is a large portion of whatever is on the menu, common meals here are jacket potatoes with beans and cheese (I add butter to beans snd scoop out the potato from another JP to add to her one). Pasta with pesto and garlic bread, salmon in a cheese sauce with pasta and veg, pizza with chips and salad, veggie burgers with chips and salad, fishpie (can add double cream and butter to the mash) with veg. I aim for 800-1000 calories for dinner.

Pudding, large portion of various high calorie puddings, common ones here are tiramisu with double cream, sponge puddings with double cream, milkshakes made with ice cream and double cream, pancakes with fruit and ice cream, rice pudding with added double cream...
I aim for 500-700 calories.

I get through a lot of double cream 😉

She has gained weight on this plan so I've not pushed the morning snack or evening snacks.

@Reallyimeanreally2022 thanks, I will defo listen and look out for this. I do listen at her door quite often and I also listen at the loo door. I have asked her she does this and she swears she doesn’t. She’s been pretty honest and open so fingers crossed.
I definitely feel she’s lacking in fats in her diet. Maybe she would accept the cream if it meant dropping a snack.

I hate to say this

But I think the default should be to consider the girls are lying and not to accept what they say when they “swear” that they are or are not doing something.

Of course don’t let them know that you are doubting everything they tell you.

But that should be your default.

If she’s not gaining quickly on that diet with minimal movement, then I’d put money on it that she is either purging or madly exercising very quietly in her room.

Is her door always closed?

If you were to say at last minute that you’d like to join for a dog walk… watch her reaction closely

We do join her for walks, she will sometimes ask me to join her as well. Or she’ll ask if we can both take him somewhere else.

I do know that the illness makes her lie, in the early days before we were getting help, I made the mistake of letter her eat her dinner outside, let’s just say the dog ate well that evening as we discovered him feasting on what she’d thrown in the bushes.
I know it’s not her, it’s a symptom of her AN.

Agree really my dd has lied blatantly to my face frequently, this is a girl that has always been honest and trustworthy up until the ED started. You can't trust them.

Betty I wouldn't suggest dropping a snack just start making her breakfast/lunch/dinner with the cream and deal with the initial fall out. If she asks 'what's in this?' Answer with 'everything you need to recover/exactly what you need right now/this is safe for you to eat/you have to eat this now - trust me'

Once they've jumped the initial hurdle (and be prepared that they may respond with aggression, swearing, threats they'll kill them selves and self harm) subsequent hurdles are generally a bit easier. Just don't back down, keep going.

Dd slept 12 hours last night and seems much better this morning.

Got an email from the school saying year 11 are moving to online learning from next week 😩 they've got a huge number of positive cases at the school. I'm still convinced dd has it and the PCRs are wrong 😑 will take her for another one next week.

* If she’s not gaining quickly on that diet with minimal movement, then I’d put money on it that she is either purging or madly exercising very quietly in her room.*

Sorry but I don’t actually agree with this. I wouldn’t assume that she is purging and/or exercising. Their malnourished bodies are repairing from the inside out and they need A LOT of calories to see decent weight gain. My DD didn’t start gaining more than 300g per week until we went over 2300 calories a day. Unfortunately Betty I have the feeling your DD is probs getting around 2000 on your meal plan. I agree with you it’s the lack of animal fats that is the culprit. I started adding around 100ml of double cream to DD’s morning smoothie and it made a big difference.

My point is

If they aren’t ever lying, then the biggest mental symptom of anorexia is essentially “fixed”.

At this stage safe to presume that very very much not “fixed”. So presume lying.

I suffered throughout teens and twenties, and now my niece (who is living with me) is in the grip of it.

She said to me “nothing gets by you, does it?”

And I said “sadly no, because I know how insidious these disease is”

@Rollergirl11 my gut instincts say she isn’t purging or excessively exercising. I could be wrong and I will remain vigilant. Sounds gross but I check the loo as soon as she’s been in for any signs of sickness or similar and I’ve never seen anything of concern.
Thanks for the advice… Will give the 100ml of cream a go. She loves a smoothie. I did add cream to leek and potato soup and she was surprisingly ok. Will keep trying to up the fats. It’s so tricky and on the surface of it looks like she eats a lot but I can see where the calories are lacking. She is gaining weight, but very slowly. Having said that her meal plan goal is for 0.5 kg a week weight gain.

I understand your point. But my point is not to underestimate how many more calories their malnourished bodies need to see decent weight gain. So be mindful that they could be doing what you suggest but my first guess would be that not enough calories!

@Bettybarkalot123 see my “go to” evening meal for DD to boost her calories would be steak and chips. Easily 350 calories in a steak. But I realise that option isn’t open to you. Also pasta dishes are good at boosting the calories, with around 250 to 300 calories in the pasta serving alone. And even more if you do carbonara so extra opportunity for adding cream. I make sure DD has at least 2 of this highly calorific meals per week and then that gives us a bit of leeway on other days.

Great advice! Thank you. I’m not going to lie.. I’m floundering with food and meal ideas.
We had a vegetable egg fried rice the other night. She enjoyed that but tried to eat the whole dish with chop sticks!! It was quite comical and eventually I made her use a spoon. She had one veg spring roll which I was pleased about. So sad to think that once, not that long ago she would have easily had two or three and loved them!
She’s always loved food, it’s very sad to see.

Her sister is home from uni this weekend and she was upset to see she has a small bruise above her eye from when she slapped herself during the meltdown she had the other Friday. She also says she seemed very sad. I’ve tried to reassure her that she’s getting better but it’s heartbreaking to see the impact this illness has on the whole family.

I don't think it matters whether they are lying/manipulating/deceiving, fundamentally. If the intake they are having isn't resulting in weight gain, for any reason, then the answer is that they need more calories. That's the bottom line.

For DD1 the volumes were an issue, so everything had to be fortified. If they will accept milk, add double cream to it. If they will accept egg, use duck eggs, etc.

If you are aiming for true, long term and sustained recovery, rather than temporary weight gain - then whether or not lying is critical.

Because the lying means that if you weren’t around to prepare, schedule, cajole what they were eating, they would revert back.

And you are not going to always be around

@Reallyimeanreally2022 I agree. But then I don’t think any of us are under the illusion that our DC’s are recovered just yet.

have you seen this article, mental health of our children is in such crisis . I'm not sure what they class as possible eating problems but the number is huge. Part of me wonders if that is too vague and might do more harm than good and if they should have used the % of people on waiting lists for ED help or in treatment.
not improved since lockdown

I'm content that DD1 maintains on

Breakfast - cereal with full fat milk
Snack - any 2 from a selection (around 200-250 cals total)
Lunch - either a sandwich, crisps & chocolate bar, or a school lunch
Afternoon snack - as above
Dinner - whatever we're eating.

She's bobbed around from 53-55kg since July, with a few illnesses in there, so I know that her weight is maintaining even though her appetite has been hit and miss.

If she was to drop below 53 Kg, then I'd just reintroduce croissants for breakfast, or pancakes, etc., to pile a bit of weight on.

DD is struggling mentally - she is clear she doesn't want to have an eating disorder but the last time she had a go at recovery she had the 'goal' of being able to go out where now the goal/motivation is a bit longer term so harder to maintain momentum if that makes sense..? Obviously I'd like her to be in that % who "fully recover" but I do wonder whether we have to adjust to 'living with and managing an eating disorder' for a while.

That said, she's just messaged me from work asking me to meet her for some Saturday night cocktails, a useful reminder of how far we have come! Cannot remember the last time I was out on the town having a cocktail! What shall I have?!

Lougle that sounds pretty similar to what DD is doing now. We dropped her evening snack/milk last week and she has pretty much maintained her weight this week. I will keep an eye on things but am prepared for her weight to fluctuate naturally up and down a little bit and if it goes a bit lower than I will just reintroduce something. I want DD to start getting back to eating intuitively rather than it be so rigid and regimented.

Myrtle oooh how lovely that your DD wants to spend her Saturday night with you! I think I’d go for an espresso martini!! 🍸🍸