Fighting Stigma: Eating Disorders are Not Easy to Cure

I have no idea why anyone would think this, but apparently there is a belief that eating disorders can be cured quickly and easily. In fact before there was much research on EDs the fix was to send a child away to an eating camp for a week or two where she would be forced to eat proper portions. This was supposed to give the kid a kick in the pants and normalize them to normal eating.

Obviously, since eating disorders are not all about food, this kind of treatment doesn’t work. In fact, eating disorders take very very long times to cure. The average length of treatment is six years, plus six months before the person feels fully recovered.

Six years is kind of a long time. It can be shorter for some people but if you expect that your recovery will take a few months think again. These are addictions we’re fighting against, and they are addictions that we and our culture are telling us are good. We also can’t separate ourselves from food to stave off binging and purging. And we can’t separate ourselves from restricting because restricting isn’t a physical thing to separate from.

There’s good news though: even though it takes a long time to recover, most people do recover. So there’s a high chance that someday you’ll make it out.