“It seemed like a good thing, they really wanted to eat healthy food…”

“I thought they just were starting to care about their fitness…”

“She’s always been picky, I didn’t realize that it was this big a problem…”

“She won’t let me cook for her, she won’t eat at the table, she reads every label obsessively…”

…“and now she has an eating disorder.”

I’ve heard countless versions of the eating disorder story from parents and it’s always heart-wrenching. The fear of what is to come for their child, the regret for not noticing sooner, the desperation as they try to figure out what to do to help. Unfortunately, there is never one good solution. Sometimes it’s residential treatment at a facility like Walden Behavioral Care, sometimes it’s assembling an outpatient team, sometimes it means overhauling how food is prepared, served and talked about it within the home…but whatever ends up working the first step should be gathering information as a parent.

As a dietitian in the eating disorder field and someone who recovered from an eating disorder as a teenager, I know that when parents have the information and support they need, the child does better. When that isn’t the case…they suffer.

That’s why over the last year here at Werth Your While Nutrition we have put the focus on parents. After several iterations of parent support groups and programs geared toward parents with children at different stages of eating disorder treatment and recovery…we are launching an 8-week, comprehensive self-paced course perfect for parents at the start of this journey. The course starts with the necessary info — like what is an eating disorder anyway — then walks you through how to prepare for doctors appointments, choosing the appropriate level of care, have difficult conversations with your kid and much more.

The course will be available for purchase for $200 on April 1…but you can get $50 off by emailing me at werthyourwhilenutrition@gmail.com and mentioning code BLOG.

So your child has an eating disorder…step 1 is get more information, register for the course here!