My plant based daughter has an eating disorder
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 5:25 pm
My daughter and I do our best to adopt a plant-based lifestyle. My daughter has been diagnosed with an eating disorder. It's been going on for four years though I have sadly been in denial. One of the roadblocks to getting treatment I feel is the negative and uneducated attitudes towards a plant based diet. Almost all professionals that are trying to help patients with eating disorders recover, think that eating a plant-based or vegan type of diet is symptomatic or one of the things that led to the eating disorder in the first place! They think this 'restrictive' diet is an unhealthy way of eating. These are the well-intentioned comments I get as I am trying to figure out how to get treatment for my daughter's ED that has been pretty much been going untreated for the last four years:
Given your family is vegan you will need to seriously consider the implications this has for your D. Veganism is a dietary choice which excludes a large range of foods and it is easy to have micronutrient deficits because of this. It is often very hard for people to recover from their eating disorder whilst being vegan and the dietary restrictions that accompany this choice are often the first startings of an eating disorder. Your daughter is likely to need to eat a lot of nutrient dense foods to recover and this again can be much more difficult. It is for this reason that many nutritionists will recommend moving to at least a vegetarian diet. It is possible to eat a very ethical vegetarian diet if that is your concern.
What do I do? There don't seem to be many professionals treating ED who are knowledgeable of the health benefits of a plant-based lifestyle. Do I just have to endure their ignorance and know that they have the best intentions and are doing the best they can? Sometimes I do wonder if my daughter chooses to eat a plant-based diet because she knows that it's a diet that is least likely to cause weight gain. Perhaps then for her it is somewhat symptomatic of an eating disorder.
Given your family is vegan you will need to seriously consider the implications this has for your D. Veganism is a dietary choice which excludes a large range of foods and it is easy to have micronutrient deficits because of this. It is often very hard for people to recover from their eating disorder whilst being vegan and the dietary restrictions that accompany this choice are often the first startings of an eating disorder. Your daughter is likely to need to eat a lot of nutrient dense foods to recover and this again can be much more difficult. It is for this reason that many nutritionists will recommend moving to at least a vegetarian diet. It is possible to eat a very ethical vegetarian diet if that is your concern.
What do I do? There don't seem to be many professionals treating ED who are knowledgeable of the health benefits of a plant-based lifestyle. Do I just have to endure their ignorance and know that they have the best intentions and are doing the best they can? Sometimes I do wonder if my daughter chooses to eat a plant-based diet because she knows that it's a diet that is least likely to cause weight gain. Perhaps then for her it is somewhat symptomatic of an eating disorder.