In the powerful documentary, "Spotting the Tiger," narrated by Oscar Award Winner Jamie Lee Curtis, the film emphasizes the importance of recognizing early warning signs of eating disorders in children.…
Are social media platforms making eating disorders in children worse?
Your child has been diagnosed with an eating disorder by one of the doctors at Kartini Clinic. Whether this is a restricting disorder with fear of fat, a bingeing and…
This post is from Kartini Clinic CEO Morgan O'Toole. Online reviews have become part of our everyday lives. Who hasn’t glanced at the star ratings when Googling a new hair…
F.E.A.S.T. - by parents, for parents Some of you may be shocked by the concept of euthanasia for people with eating disorders -- we at Kartini Clinic certainly are. …
When I first thought about writing this blog I had patients with anorexia nervosa in mind. Patients with AN often struggle to find their voice, regardless of how smart, competent…
Over the past 20 years (yes 20!) of re-feeding children with eating disorders, we at Kartini Clinic have learned some tips and…
Here we go into our season of Thanksgiving again. And we, at Kartini Clinic, give thanks for a lot of things: for the healing of our patients, for the continued evolution…
When you practice as long as I have in the field of childhood eating disorders, one thing becomes abundantly clear: there are cycles to the frequency with which patients…
Is anorexia nervosa (AN) a chronic illness? What do we mean when we say that AN, or any other eating disorder, is a chronic illness? Wikipedia says: “The term chronic…
This post was originally published on December 16, 2015. Possibly nothing has changed so much over the last ten years as the acceptance of parents’ role in the treatment of…
Approximately 1.25 million American children and adults have type 1 diabetes (T1DM), according to the American Diabetes Association. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune process whereby the insulin-producing cells of…
1) Weight loss in children isn’t normal Imagine you’re a parent of a bright, active 12 year old boy. He gets good grades and has lots of friends. He excels…
This post was originally published on February 13, 2012. I (among others) have recently been challenged by Laura Collins to get the message out that weight restoration is critical to…
This post was originally published on November 13, 2013. Until I lived in the world of therapists and mental health professionals as part of the Kartini multidisciplinary team treating children…
This post was originally published on June 12, 2013. We’ve all heard from parents whose child had (or has) an eating disorder and who re-feed them at home, single-handedly and…
The canny ability of eating disorders to twist even the most kindly meant words is something that is experienced by almost all our patients. We originally published this post back…
One of the challenges of swimming against the stream -- as when, for example, one insists that parents don’t cause eating disorders when many providers learn and believe otherwise --…
Setting a goal weight is not simple. And it is never harder than in a growing child, where it is a moving target. I have written some rather lengthy guidelines…
Everyone in our field knows that the Holiday season provides special challenges to those with eating disorders, be those restricting, bingeing and purging or predominantly bingeing eating disorders. Add to…
Almost anyone who works in a specialized field (such as pediatric eating disorders) spends a great deal of time thinking about diagnostic criteria for diseases and conditions. This is true…
Last week I was pleased to discuss a paper by Walt Kaye and colleagues that I felt strongly supported ordered eating for people with anorexia nervosa. Ordered eating on our…
My good friend and colleague Therese Waterhous, a PhD, RD eating disorder specialist and board member of the parent organization F.E.A.S.T., called me the other day. She needed to vent,…
This blog is asking for help from those of you who have a child with anorexia nervosa but who may have experienced an eating disorder yourself. Any clinic or provider…
It has become almost trite to advise parents struggling with the “severe pushback” of doing battle with their child’s eating disorder to remember that flight attendants caution parents travelling with…
I’m sometimes not sure whom I make madder: some kids, some parents, or some insurance companies! Making kids mad: Me: “Jill, help me understand why your weight would be way…
Eating disorders strike children at virtually all stages of development. Sometimes we think it’s most difficult when they strike a very young child, sometimes it seems the most difficult when…
Lots of ink is been spilled on the subject of the stigma associated with having an eating disorder. And in order to discuss the subject sensibly we need to get…
Recently a patient of ours returned from a treatment setting where she had been presented with “challenge foods”. In her case she had been given cheetos and soda pop. Now…
I am asked this nearly every week by one parent or another, and I answer reflexively “of course”. In order to do what we do at Kartini Clinic we have…
Sometimes I get discouraged by what appears to me to be the excruciating slowness with which new ideas enter the mainstream of medical and psychological teaching and practice. In the…
When I was a girl, my brothers and sister and I had the usual kid-like responses to the world around us. One of them was innocent astonishment at those less…
I just returned from Tampa, Florida and the 2014 IAEDP conference of professionals involved in the treatment of eating disorders. I was there to talk about the very young child…
Morgan and I just returned from the parent-founded and parent-lead F.E.A.S.T. conference, familiar to many of you as an online resource for parents whose children are struggling with an eating…
This blog will be short as I am preparing to attend and speak at the F.E.A.S.T. conference in Texas this week. Very exciting! Recently I was asked to consult on…
Despite the fact that we occasionally receive criticism of our Meal Plan for its supposed “rigidity”, what has struck me after years of reading people’s food journals is the degree…
This is the second time I have blogged about a mother named Charlotte and her brave, sassy and in-your-face crusade to find great care and justice for children with eating…
Some blog topics draw in a continuous trickle of commentary long after they've been published. One such blog is entitled “Determining Ideal Body Weight”. And little wonder. The other…
No doubt I will make myself unpopular (again) with some of our psychiatric colleagues by speaking out in this way about the use of locked psychiatric units in the treatment…
I recently blogged on one of the childhood eating disorders (incidentally not yet recognized as such in the DSM system) called selective eating. I got a deluge of parental comment…
Many people are shocked when they learn that we have patients with anorexia nervosa as young as six or seven, and, although it is rare, it certainly does occur. Why…
There is a common misconception out there that Kartini patients are fed on a strict meal plan for the rest of their lives. But what exactly is our meal plan? And…
For those of you who remain unconvinced that the value of home cooking goes beyond the cost savings, please be aware of the effects that processed food packaging can have…
This week’s blog covers a topic - menstruation in female patients - which I have written about before, but, given its critical importance to our female patients and their parents,…
I’m sure all specialties have their frustrations, but here is a major one of mine: patients who come to Kartini Clinic needing -- indeed deserving -- help but at the…
This is a tribute to two people who just plain “get it.” And, you know, it can be hard to get. I certainly know many professionals who deeply do not…
Inspired to think outside my usual box by Dr. Eric Topol, author of Creative Destruction of Medicine this morning, I began to ask myself: how can I help parents who…
Patient: I have battled with my weight all my life, doctor. It's my major health issue. Doctor: What does that mean, Susan? Patient: (irritated) It means, doctor, that I have…
Aaargh! Although dieting has been shown repeatedly to be destructive, counter-productive and useless in most settings (i.e. you re-gain everything you lose and then some…), it simply will not die…
You’ve heard it everywhere: your friends, your doctor, the New York Times, your personal trainer, virtually anyone who talks to you about health for more than five minutes will give…
With the publication of results for models of family-based home treatments, the treatment of children with eating disorders has changed a lot in the past five or six years, or…
Cook, My Darling Daughter! is the title of a cookbook from the 1950’s I found in a secondhand bookstore and gave my eldest daughter as a young adult. She had…
In an article recently in the New York Times, author Harriet Brown reviews a subject that was hotly debated at the London International Conference for Eating Disorders by Glenn Waller,…
[Ed. Note: a more recent blog on this subject can be found here). There is a little talked-about pediatric eating disorder called selective eating that I have not covered extensively…
According to Wikipedia Medscape is: a web resource for physicians and other health professionals. It features peer-reviewed original medical journal articles, CME (Continuing Medical Education), a customized version of the…
On the recommendation of Dr. Rod McClymont, of the Center for Eating and Dieting Disorders, Bathurst, Australia, I have been reading a new book, Animal Models of Eating Disorders (Humana Press 2013) edited…
I was recently asked an important question which I was unable to address during my breakout workshop at this year's FEAST Symposium 2012.The question: does a child who has completed…
On Thursday November 29th I went with Laura Collins and the FEAST team to give "testimony" to congressional staffers about the plight of children with anorexia nervosa. It was an…
What would we do without our modern early warning systems? The terrible weather ravaging New York, New Jersey and all along the East Coast this week has made me reflect…
I am delighted to announce that Bart Walsh, LCSW, Kartini Clinic’s individual and hypnotherapist of many years, will be presenting three workshops at the 20th Annual International Eating Disorder Conference,…
Recently an article was published looking at the caloric intake of children at various ages and the relationship of this intake to their weight. The article was published in the…
And one more reason to make the diagnosis earlyProfessor Richard Crandall of Reed College, himself a renowned scientist, sent me an article he thought I might be interested in. I…
Today I was seeing a young patient who had just been cleared to resume her sport activities. At the start of the appointment she was nearly trembling with anxiety, for…
What helps children with anorexia nervosa gain weight? How can you tell whose child will do well and whose may not? Can you tell?At Kartini Clinic we have always felt that…
I have already blogged about the new book edited by Bryan Lask and Ian Frampton with the felicitous title Eating Disorders and the Brain. But the other day, flipping through…
I follow Laura Collin’s blog almost all of the time—but some personal medical issues have kept me from reading lately, until today. I scanned her recent entries and saw this.??…
Every researcher in the field of eating disorders tries their best to reduce the burden of suffering for patients. They try to contribute to the meaningful scientific discussion. Having said…
There seems to be a discussion that simply will not die in the world of eating disorders (particularly when it comes to anorexia nervosa) around whether the “desire for thinness”…
Friends: at the F.E.A.S.T. conference in Washington DC, I was approached by a mother (we’ll call her Kathy) who thanked me for helping her out from a distance with my…
This is a difficult time of the year for our patients and, I imagine, for eating disordered patients everywhere. All over the country people are making plans for family to…
I made this dialogue up, pieced it together from things that have been said to mothers and fathers seeking our care for their eating disordered children many times over the…
The great thing about having your own blog is that you get to decide what you think is appropriate reading for your patients and their families. Book reviews are always…
I sit at my desk drinking coffee; our patient census over the years is approaching two thousand children and young adults, the majority of whom have had anorexia nervosa or…
Family-based treatment for the young adult patientFor most of us when we are 17, 18, 19 or slightly older, independence from our family of origin can’t come a moment too…
OK folks, as Laura Collins says: “A new era of science-based, family inclusive and truly optimistic eating disorder treatment begins now.”And it begins with the F.E.A.S.T. conference, the very first,…
I am often asked: “do we really need to have all this treatment for our child’s eating disorder? Can’t she/he just talk to someone once a week and not have…
What does it mean to say a family member of a patient with anorexia nervosa is “affected” or “partially affected” with an eating disorder? When Other Family Members are Affected…
This week I am including an interesting blog I found on medscape. Dr Puhl (the Director of Research at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University)…
As Dr. O’Toole is away this week, I thought I would try to fill her rather roomy shoes and take a stab at this week’s blog. As CEO I’m often…
Who is not a candidate for family-based treatments (FBTs)? We don’t like to think about this question, and we like to talk about it openly even less. As a community…
Academics and researchers argue about what they refer to as "outcome" all the time. How should treatment outcome be defined? How do you know that the patient is "there"? These…
There are many by-words in contemporary medicine and ever more coming along. “Vertical integration” is one of them, but what exactly does it mean?It means something that we have been…
The other day a young patient of mine asked me “which is more important: psychological remission or physical remission?” Of course she was asking because she wanted to know how…
I am occasionally asked whether or not anorexia nervosa is a chronic illness. As far as I am concerned, anorexia nervosa is a chronic illness of remission and exacerbation, which…
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