Refeeding – Careful How You Do It

Been called the Food Police yet? Had people go say how belittling or punitive the approach is?

Hold your headup and don’t let ignorant comments make you feel you are not doing your son or daughter any favours.

Let’s remove the myths. Firstly, you are not the Food Police. The ones who say this view it through their own circumstances and teenage rights. If their child was sick with some illness they would oversee the medication taking and other treatments to ensure wellness occurs. These same people do not see that for someone with an eating disorder – and in particular anorexia – food is the medicine and the treatment. It is critical you get your child to eat and the only way to face down the fears and irrational thinking that anorexia has, is to have rules around food eating and to sit with them whilst they eat. Left to their own devices, those with anorexia do not eat or eat so little they continue to endanger their life.

Secondly, it is not belittling or punitive. The emotional role of the parent/carer is to encourage, uphold, strengthen, love, etc. It is being firm but loving. As far as I have researched, all relationships that undergo this stage of refeeding end up healthy and strong. Your child may say they hate you during the refeeding and fight back, but once weight is restored and they continue with recovery, they love the fact you stood by them. That you persevered and believed in them and their life. Actually neither is a NG feed punitive or belittling. It is medicine and if your child is that sick and still will not eat, then take the NG lifeline that is offered. Your child gets to live and fight this on another day.

Thirdly, you are removing a basic right and independence of your child. If your child ate normally yes you would be. But your child is so under the control of the eating disorder that normal, rational, logical eating doesn’t happen. They can’t eat nor take independent and appropriate control of their eating. The early stages of refeeding needs to have someone there to help and support them as they learn to eat and fight back against the control the eating disorder imposes on them. As later stages of refeeding occurs, the parents start to hand back the independence and self-monitoring of eating. There is a lot of basic relearning to do be done because the eating disorder wipes out what should normally occur.

And this last part is incredibly important.

DO NOT IN ANY WAY PHYSICALLY HARM OR VERBALLY ABUSE YOUR CHILD.

Incredible? no it really does happen. Some parents threaten, harm or abuse their child because they won’t eat. Yes it does get emotionally fraught and frustrating when you are trying to break down the eating disorder barrier. Everyone has a limit as to how much they can deal with, but in this case, your child IS NOT the enemy here. The eating disorder is and you can’t lash out at it, because your child is the one who ‘cops’ it. This kind of behavior does not build or strengthen the relationship you have with your child in the long term. Nor does this behavior establish healing and moving away from the eating disorder. You take your child’s independence and emotional wellbeing away and reduce them to an object. Violence on any level will not heal your child.

I do understand believe me. Sophie was violent, aggressive and lashed out during the refeeding stage. She was very difficult to refeed at home and refused to eat anything other than what she wanted. I would have had to tie her to the table to get her to eat, cause she just kept leaving the table. Or force feed her, because she would not eat no matter how firm, loving etc we were. In the end you have to do what is right for your family and your child. If that means slight compromises til they are able to fight back better against the eating disorder fears and voice, then so be it. It is far far better to do this than to resort to some sort of violence.