Feast press release

FEAST: ‘Stop blaming parents for eating disorders’ WARRENTON, VA--An international eating disorders organization is challenging the psychiatric profession's lingering belief that parents can cause potentially lethal illnesses such as anorexia and bulimia. "Parents can't cause an eating disorder any more than they can cause cancer or diabetes," said Laura Collins, executive director of F.E.A.S.T., an organization committed to evidence-based care and parent empowerment during treatment. "Since the time eating disorders were first recognized, a painful and damaging history of blaming parents for the illness has persisted," Collins said. "This implication, both implicit and explicit, harms families and recoveries by alienating the ill person from his or her support system and failing to strengthen that system." She called on the treatment community and society to end the era of parent blame. "Freed of this burden parents can, when professionally supported and coached, be powerful allies during treatment," she said. Eating disorders affect millions of people around the world and are found in a diverse range of cultures, demographic groups and family settings. Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric condition. The belief that parents are responsible for eating disorders comes from a long tradition of blaming families for psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia and autism. The belief was bolstered in the 1970s by studies purporting to show that eating disorders could be associated with "psychomatic" or dysfunctional families in which a mother is "too controlling," "too critical," or "enmeshed" in the life of her daughter. Such beliefs have been debunked by leading thinkers in the field who say these conclusions were based on bad science and were likely confusing cause and effect. "The presence of an eating disorder or other mental illness in a family can by itself cause dysfunctional reactions and interactions," Collins said. Other studies have pointed to trauma, especially sexual abuse, as causative. But experts today say that while trauma can trigger an eating disorder, it will only be in an individual who is already predisposed biologically and genetically to the illness. “This is a brain disorder,” said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health. In a statement last March, Dr. Insel said that "based on genetic and neuroimaging studies, eating disorders appear to have a biological basis, analogous to what is observed in other serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and addictive diseases. All of these illnesses, including eating disorders, need to be addressed as biomedical as well as behavioral problems if we are to help people recover." In recent years, leading professional organizations such as NEDA, the National Eating Disorders Association, have endorsed this position as well. In a 2007 statement, NEDA said it wanted "to send the clear message that families are NOT responsible for eating disorders." Nevertheless, a wide body of clinicians and therapists, schooled in the beliefs of the past, remain ready to blame parents. "I think today still a lot of providers would not see the parents as part of the solution but as part of the problem and I think that’s been a pervasive attitude among a large number of clinicians in our field.” said Dr. Daniel le Grange, head of the eating disorders program at the University of Chicago. As a result, parents are undermined in their ability to take a leading role in the vital work of refeeding an anorexic, Collins said. "Evidence-based treatment of eating disorders indicates that family empowerment and involvement is one of the most powerful tools for early intervention and improved outcomes." While parents do not cause eating disorders, they can be an active part of recovery, Collins said. "It is important for parents to take responsibility for ending any behaviors or attitudes that hinder recovery." xxx FEAST: Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders Contact: Laura Collins, Executive Director, 1-540-227-8518 info@FEAST-ED.org     www.feast-ed.org