Today’s post is for eating disorder awareness week, which this year has a focus on early detection and intervention. Often, sufferers are unable to access treatment until they have been ill for some time, which makes recovery so much harder than if treatment happened once symptoms first began. As well as having obvious benefits for patients, there is also a financial advantage of early intervention (sadly, cost has to be taken into consideration when deciding if a new treatment is worth it). With the current state of the NHS it is important from a financial point of view, as preventive rather than curative medicine is much cheaper overall. So with the benefits of early intervention being brought to our attention, today I thought I’d write about a type of treatment for anorexia – Body Image Therapy.
For those of you who aren’t already aware of the symptoms, Anorexia Nervosa is characterised by:
- severely restricting food intake, leading to extremely low body weight
- a fear of gaining weight
- distorted body image perceptions, with sufferers believing they are fatter than they are.
Contrary to what you might think, it isn’t just girls and young women who can have anorexia, men make up about 10% of total suffers (although some studies estimate higher). It is also becoming more common, with inpatient hospital admissions increasing by about 7% a year since 2005. As well as this increase, raising awareness and improving treatment is so important as anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
One of the reasons anorexia can be so hard to overcome is that sufferers have a distorted body image and believe they are much bigger than they truly are. This reinforces the cycle of restricting food or overexercising, and makes anorexia hard to beat. Studies have also shown (e.g. Fairburn et al, 1985) that the symptom of body image disturbances is also a predictor for relapse once therapy has been completed.
Diagram adapted from Fairburn et al (2008)
Therefore, it makes sense to include body image therapy when treating a patient with anorexia. It is a type of cognitive therapy, which aims to reduce the harmful thoughts about body and weight. One type of body image therapy is Mirror Therapy, in which patients view their body in front of a mirror during a therapy session. Exposure can be increased over time and leads to an immediate emotional response which can be discussed during therapy. The therapist encourages the patient to look at their body as a whole rather than focus on perceived flaws, and to describe their body accurately as opposed to using negative language. This helps patients to learn that there are other ways of viewing their body and the consequences of negative thoughts about it (Delinsky & Wilson, 2006). Over time, cognitive therapy with mirror therapy has been shown to be more effective in terms of reducing body dissatisfaction and avoidance compared to cognitive therapy alone (Key et al, 2001).
Body image training in anorexia is therefore important as it could help to overcome the cognitive processes which make it hard to break the cycle of disordered eating and improve recovery rates for people suffering from an eating disorder.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to help spread awareness using the hashtag #eatingdisorderawarenessweek
If you would like to read more about the possible causes of eating disorders then see a previous post here or read about body dysmorphia in anorexia here
If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder then there is help available. Contact your doctor or charities such as Beat, who can provide you with the correct support.