How to provide help to someone struggling with an eating disorder

It’s Eating Disorder Awareness Week, there are multiple eating disorders, but the most common and detrimental are anorexia and bulimia.

We are sharing tips on how to get help for someone with an eating disorder.

News 25 spoke with Gulfport Behavioral Health about treatment options available on the Coast.

While they provide several inpatient and outpatient mental health therapy programs, they recommend River Oaks in New Orleans for people with eating disorders.

During a Zoom call, their program manager Marie Robles said if you are concerned a family member has an eating disorder, start paying attention to their eating habits.

She recommends eating as a family instead of having individual meals. “You can start to see if someone is struggling at least with food or if they have behaviors of getting up very close to meals or going to the bathroom. I think that families are so busy now with extracurricular activities, we don’t even notice what people are eating anymore.”

If you think they have an eating disorder, the following steps would be to talk with them and help them find treatment options. Nobles River Oaks Hospital program is successful due to its size and individualization. They only have eight beds and create a unique program for each patient that focuses on understanding their eating disorder and developing skills for symptom containment and relapse prevention.

If you want to learn more, visit their website.