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Truths about Eating Disorders |

Dr. Bertha Tavarez, Clinical Director at Clementine South Miami, talks about some truths about eating disorders: eating disorders are not choices, increased risk for both suicide & medical complications, genes & environment play important roles and full recovery is possible.
The expert says she works with adolescents and they may have moments of relapse, but she believes that recovery is 100% possible with a lot of care.

Transcript

The doctor was explaining to me how moms are just blaming themselves mentally physically spiritually exhausted some of them have just used up every little bit of money they have mortgaged their own house again sold it just to help a child recover it’s just you see some pretty sad situations mom’s parents shouldn’t blame themselves no they shouldn’t and it’s something that you know when I receive a family into our care because it’s not the client the families also the client it’s it’s helping them with that burden that they are blaming themselves and questioning and this is your moment yeah in reviewing everything and what if I would have done this where they were six and and since it’s helping them understand that it’s bigger than them mm-hmm and that they can’t love their child through to wellness that they need help and so that’s not something we see a lot and we have a few truths to focus on yeah the first on the list is eating disorders are not a choice yes which is exactly what you said yes increase risk for both suicide and medical complications really yes absolutely genes and environment play important roles and full recovery is possible do you see full recovery yes well let this just throw a number out for the sake of hypothetic here um out of ten I’m gonna say usually females right mm-hmm out of ten females how many recover that’s a really tough laugh that’s a really tough thing to answer probably I would say about half but there’s so many factors that play in I think for me because I work primarily with adolescents at higher levels of care we send them off into the world to lower levels of care and they continue their recovery journey certainly we have those adolescents that may have moments of relapse but we do believe that recovery is 100% possible and not by an individual can one day use the word recovered you

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