Eating Disorder Therapy for Adults
Struggling with an eating disorder as an adult can feel very isolating. Eating disorders are most often associated with teenagers and college-aged women. When an adult woman in her 30s, 40s, 50s, or older suffers from disordered eating or an eating disorder, she often feels intense shame and embarrassment. The truth is that eating disorders can happen at any age.
Whether you are experiencing behaviors that are consistent with an eating disorder for the first time in your life, or you are in recovery and dealing with a setback, you are not alone! At Recovered and Restored Eating Disorder Therapy Center, we provide compassionate online eating disorder therapy for adults at any stage of their journey. Our team of highly qualified licensed therapists and coaches use evidence-based treatment to support the unique challenges adults face when confronting an eating disorder.
What Causes Eating Disorders in Midlife?
Eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, orthorexia, binge-eating disorder, and others can develop from a multitude of factors. Most of those factors can impact people of all ages. Social pressure, cultural expectations, abuse, traumatic experiences, and a history of other mental health issues can be experienced by anyone. In that regard, the same stressors that lead a teenager or young adult to engage in disordered eating could also motivate older adults to head down the same path.
The additional factors associated with more life experience, however, may exacerbate the urge to use disordered eating as a coping mechanism. According to an article published by the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) called “Eating Disorders in Midlife and Beyond,” these include:
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Maternal mental health issues related to pregnancy, childbirth, infertility, and menopause
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Family dynamic changes like divorce, widowhood, becoming an empty nester, caring for aging/disabled loved ones, and becoming a grandparent
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Lifestyle shifts like retirement, reduced athletic ability, managing injuries, and facing chronic illness
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Confronting natural signs of aging in the face and body
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These difficulties of aging may be the catalyst for both women who dealt with an eating disorder earlier in life, or those who are now facing one for the first time. In particular, someone who placed a high value on physical attributes - body image, athleticism, or concepts of beauty - but never developed an eating disorder in her younger days, could be at higher risk now. The sense that she has lost control over her physical appearance may cause enough distress to start compensating with disordered eating behaviors.​​
For others who found effective coping strategies during their younger years, the additional pressures and changes that come along with aging might just be more than they can handle. Eating disorders are more often about control than they are about actual food or weight. An eating disorder might emerge or reappear as a response to one’s inability to control the effects of age, life changes, or the world around them.
Even the information overload of sensationalized medical news, fad diets and diet culture, celebrity cosmetic procedures, and influencer proclamations can push someone into unhealthy behaviors. Constantly changing and often contradictory advice becomes overwhelming. The compounding effects of this type of stress can convert health consciousness into a debilitating eating disorder.
Resources for Adult Eating Disorders
Eating disorder awareness has significantly improved in the 21st Century, leading to effective therapies, early screening tools, and reduced stigmatization. However, this awareness is mostly focused on teenagers and young adults.
In order to reduce the shame and stigmatization that middle-aged and older adults experience when struggling with an eating disorder, more research is needed. A narrative review article published in ScienceDirect explores eating disorder issues specific to midlife adults for the purpose of providing tools for Eating Disorder therapists and primary care physicians. The article cites startling statistics regarding the self-reported symptoms of women over the age of 40, including binge eating and purging.
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In another review summary published in Current Opinion in Psychiatry, the authors note that the existence of eating disorders never reaches zero for women, even in advanced age. The review finds that women are similarly vulnerable to eating disorders at menopause as they are during puberty. Additionally, binge eating and anorexia nervosa are common diagnoses for adults.
Research and medical studies are vital to raising awareness of eating disorder risks and prevalence in adults. Therapists who specialize in eating disorders are invested in adapting and advancing their skill sets to treat midlife and aging populations. At Recovered & Restored, our team of highly qualified eating disorder specialists pursue research findings that expand our knowledge and expertise within the field.
Online Eating Disorder Therapy for Adults
The availability of resources for adults who are searching for eating disorder therapy presents an additional challenge. As a specialized category of mental health treatment, eating disorder therapy may be difficult to find locally. Furthermore, adults who are seeking treatment may face other obstacles, such as shame or embarrassment, obligations to work and family, time constraints, and co-occurring health concerns.
Recovered & Restored offers eating disorder therapy for adults in an online format that smooths the path to obtaining compassionate, qualified mental health care. Our HIPAA-compliant platform makes eating disorder therapy convenient and accessible to adults in Delaware, New Jersey, South Carolina, Maryland, Florida, Vermont, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. A systematic review of mental health care via telehealth systems found that it is comparable to in-person services, with the added benefit of being more convenient.
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Recovered & Restored online therapy for adults with eating disorders provides benefits such as:
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Being able to attend sessions from home or wherever one feels comfortable
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No need to commute or rearrange schedules to get to an office location
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Flexibility to schedule sessions while traveling
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Ease of meeting with multiple providers for eating disorder therapy, family therapy, nutrition counseling, and support groups
Our licensed therapists offer evidence-based treatment modalities that address eating disorders and related mental health issues that impact them. Our team works with teens and women of all ages to provide support on the journey to recovery from an eating disorder.
Recovery for Adult Eating Disorders
Whether you have struggled with an eating disorder before or this is your first experience with one, Recovered & Restored is here, backed by research, to let you know that you are not alone. You may feel like you are a failure because you thought you had beaten your disorder, or because you thought you were too strong to fall into such behaviors. Don’t believe that lie! There is no such thing as failure. Recovery is not a linear path. It is a winding journey that has roadblocks and setbacks. Success is not always black and white. Sometimes it is just inching forward one little bit at a time, and sometimes it is starting over after a rough patch. The key is staying on the path and making sure you have solid support along the way.
You may have every excuse in the book as to why you don’t need or deserve help with your eating disorder. Forget all of them. There is no shame in reaching out for help, and there is nothing to fear. You are strong just for taking this step to start your research into eating disorder therapy for adults. We are here to support you as you gain strength every day along your journey to restoring what your eating disorder took from you.
You are never too old, too broken, or too weak to deserve support. Contact us to begin your healing journey with compassionate, skilled online eating disorder therapy.