Tips for Dealing with Eating Disorders

- No matter how strong your suspicion that a student has an eating disorder, do not make a decision without first speaking privately with the student. If possible, select a time to talk when you will not feel rushed. Ensure sufficient time and try to prevent interruptions.

- In a direct and non-punitive manner, indicate to the student all the specific observations that have aroused your concern. Allow the student to respond. If the student discloses information about problems, listen carefully, with empathy and non-judgmentally. Do not confront the student as part of a group of people, all of whom are firing accusations at the student at once.

- Throughout the conversation, communicate care, concern and a desire to talk about problems. Your responsibility is not diagnosis or therapy; it is the development of a compassionate and forthright conversation that ultimately helps a student in trouble find understanding, support and the proper therapeutic resources.

- Your tentative sense that he or she might have an eating disorder.

- Your conviction that the matter clearly needs to be evaluated.

- Your understanding that participation [in dance class and other dance-related] activities will not be jeopardized unless health has been compromised to the point where such participation is dangerous.

- Disturbance of self and others through loss of control over dieting, body image, eating, emotions and decisions.

- Avoid an argument or battle of wills. Repeat the evidence, your concern and, if warranted, your conviction that something must be done. Terminate the conversation if it is going nowhere or if either party becomes too upset. This impasse suggests the need for consultation with a professional.

- Throughout the process of detection, referral and recovery, the focus should be on the person feeling healthy and functioning effectively—not weight, shape or morality.

- Do not intentionally or unintentionally become the student’s therapist, savior or victim. Attempts to “moralize,” develop therapeutic plans, closely monitor the person’s eating, adjust one’s life around the eating disorder or cover for the person are not helpful.

- Be knowledgeable about community resources to which the student can be referred. In discussing the utility of these resources, emphasize to the student that, since eating problems are very hard to overcome on one’s own, past unsuccessful attempts are not indicative of a lack of effort or a moral failure.

- Arrange for some type of follow-up contact with the student.

1. Don’t cast a net of awe and wonder around the existence of an eating disorder. Keep the focus on the reality that eating disorders result in:

- Inefficiency in the fulfillment of academic, familial, occupational and other responsibilities.

- Misery in the form of food and weight obsession, anxiety about control, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness and extreme mood swings.

- Alienation in the form of social anxiety, social withdrawal, secrecy, mistrust of others and self-absorption.

- Disturbance of self and others through loss of control over dieting, body image, eating, emotions and decisions.

2. Don’t oversimplify. Avoid thinking or saying things such as, “Well, eating disorders are just an addiction like alcoholism,” or “All you have to do is start accepting yourself as you are.”

3. Don’t imply that bulimia nervosa, because it is often associated with “normal weight,” is somehow less serious than anorexia nervosa.

4. Don’t be judgmental, e.g., don’t tell the person that what they are doing is “sick” or “stupid” or “self-destructive.”

5. Don’t give advice about weight loss, exercise or appearance.

6. Don’t diagnose: Keep the focus on IMAD (Inefficiency, Misery, Alienation, Disturbance) and the ways that the behaviors are impacting the person’s life and well-being.

7. Don’t “promise to keep this a secret no matter what.”

8. Don’t be inactive during an emergency: If the person is throwing up several times per day, passing out, complaining of chest pain or is suicidal, get professional help immediately.