How to Nourish Your Child Through an Eating Disorder

By: Casey Crosbie RD CSSD, Wendy Sterling MS RD CSSD, James Lock MD PhD - Foreword, Neville H. Golden MD - Foreword

Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg

Help your child eat normally again.

Parents are the first to know when their child starts behaving differently. Has your son stopped eating his favorite food, or does he refuse to eat out with friends? Has your daughter drastically increased her exercise regimen or become obsessed with health foods? These are among the telltale signs that your child, like millions of others, may have an eating disorder (ED).

In this essential guide, registered dietitians Casey Crosbie and Wendy Sterling introduce an all-new strategy you can use to help your child at home. The plate-by-plate approach is rooted in family-based treatment - the leading psychological therapy for EDs. Unlike complicated "exchange" systems, this is simple: Crosbie and Sterling coach you through every aspect of meeting your child's nutritional needs, using just one tool-a ten-inch plate.

Paired with therapy, this intuitive, visual method is the best way to support your child on the path to recovery. Plus, the authors cover how to talk about diet and weight, what to do while traveling, what to expect from your child's doctor, and much more.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Casey Crosbie, Wendy Sterling, James Lock, Neville H. Golden (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Useful for AN only

Like so many books on eating disorders, this book briefly mentions the spectrum of eating disorders, but only discusses restricting in any depth. Much of the advice would be unhelpful to harmful if applied to BN or BED.

Also, I wouldn’t recommend this book if you’re not the intended audience (parents of kids with eating disorders featuring restriction). If you’re, say, looking for insights into how to recover from your own eating disorder, this book won’t offer you much. It may actually be overwhelming to the sufferer, as it advocates an authoritarian approach that may be discouraging or impractical for those suffering from an eating disorder themselves.

I Followed Along With My Hard Copy

I liked the narration. It helps especially since it’s such a sensitive topic to “not be alone.” If that makes sense. It’s not for the beginner parent/family/practitioner, so that might be a little misleading. Although you do learn terms like FBT, there is a lot that as a practitioner I don’t think is geared towards the parent (I couldn’t be wrong. I do think the hard copy is better for the parent, with the actual visuals/pictures of food it has). I would recommend this audible to anyone reading the book.

Hinders understanding and misinformation

This author has left me frustrated because she so desperately wants to be inoffensive that she is intentionally causing misunderstanding. For those that will read or listen to this book, that is a serious consideration. We all know men and women begin as either boys, or girls, and it is that specific truth which requires focus. This is especially true for any eating disorders. But confusion reigns as you listen or read because it is biological, not self identity, that determines treatment.

Being born a man child means the child will grow into the masculine form of a human. When born lacking a penis, and having instead, ovaries, a child is a girl, and she will have intrinsically feminine characteristics, including physical growth and mentally feminine thought processes. Letting a child determine for themselves if they are male or female is stupid, if not outright dangerous. If a child decides they like to eat paint chips, which contain lead, will you let them? Kids don't always want to go to bed, either. Will you let them watch TV all night and miss school so they can sleep in? I liked very much the comparison of treatment equated to chemotherapy; that was an excellent example.

The author's attempt to cater to gender neutrality completely ignores differences in human biology. Everything is made more complex when a child suffers from depraved eating patterns and food habits. I have found it is profoundly fundamental to treatment of an eating disorder to clearly and correctly address the victim as a girl, or as a boy- and that is a fact of their birth. Additional nonsense about gender identity is a huge red flag. Any treatment team that permits misidentification will only cause a child stress and anxiety, and it will not get at the root cause of the feeding problem.

Nowhere is there an allowance by the author that family dynamics, cultural norms, and social and economic factors play a huge part in eating disorders. A girl that thinks she is fat might be dangerously thin- but important information, like an overbearing father that knows girls eat less and tend to like vegetables and a mother who is always on a diet because her mother and sister have Type 2 diabetes mellitus- is not considered. Nor is any space given to ADHD, and we all know those medical remedies, like Ritalin, famously cause anorexia, a lack of desire to eat, not a mental issue and poor food relationship. Never is anything said about a son reaching puberty and suddenly discovering his height shoots up before his body weight catches up. She just goes into a story about a preteen boy who, being told to put down the video game controls and go for a walk suddenly goes from too little exercise to a full blown case of anorexia nervosa.

While I think the author has made many good points, I find it difficult to understand why she doesn't make treatment easier for a child. Girls grow a certain way, for a designated purpose, in a well-known pattern which defines her place in this world. Being a woman, a daughter, a sister, a mother, a grandma, these are worthy and worthwhile positions in the social order. Being a man, a brother, a father, a son, and so on, is equally worthy. Yet no one can be, or should want to be, what they are not. Kids have enough problems, and it's foolish to let them think for themselves when their bodies need to grow, and the way they are thinking adversely affects them and their families.

For me, disordered eating was solved before it started. As a child, I didn't buy the food, so I was given my meals, and my choice was to eat, or not. I still hate my mom's chicken, I am still lactose intolerant, and I am allergic to corn. None of this was ever considered. If chicken was served, I didn't have to eat it. If there was milk or cream sauce for the veggies, I didn't have to eat it. But I was not ever allowed to dictate what I would, or would not eat. I love and adore cherries, but my mom hates them. They were a rare treat. My sister loves hot, spicy food, but my mom can't tolerate black pepper. We never had Black Pepper Seared Steak.

Eating disorders are serious, and seriously complicated. I think this book is not able to be very helpful because it isn't clear and distinct beginning to end.