How Eating Disorder 'Coaches' are Revolutionizing Treatment

Eating disorders are extremely complex illnesses. It takes multiple professionals in a treatment team to help individuals navigate the path to recovery, and recovery often becomes a complicated day-to-day process. As someone in recovery from multiple eating disorders, I began my recovery almost two years ago, and I am still working on my recovery each and every day. While I don’t have a nutritionist because I cannot afford one, I do have a therapist who helps me in my recovery through therapy sessions. However, she is more than a therapist: she is my eating disorder coach.

Eating disorder coaches are a new aspect in the treatment of eating disorders, but they are so new, in fact, that they are controversial. Professionals such as psychiatrists and therapists have expressed fear that eating disorder coaches might take over a client’s recovery and replace them, but these individuals are simply an addition to a treatment team as they not only work one-on-one with clients, but they work with the entire treatment team. Eating disorder coaches provide clients with support where other professionals — psychiatrists, doctors, nutritionists, etc. — can’t. While clients have individual appointments with the majority of their treatment team, eating disorder coaches are reachable around the clock. Eating disorder coaches attend meals with clients and provide emotional support throughout the day as clients handle urges and behaviors. My therapist is unique because she is a coach and a therapist who also has a history of an eating disorder, but being a therapist is not a requirement to be a coach. Coaches are commonly individuals who have personal experience of battling an eating disorder who can empathize with clients and provide peer-to-peer guidance.

Eating disorder coaches are revolutionary in the way that they provide extra support and deliver another treatment option apart from traditional inpatient or partial hospitalization treatments. Whereas individuals in an inpatient or partial hospitalization program are often given round-the-clock care, or care at least 10 hours each day, clients working with eating disorder coaches are better able to remain active in their everyday lives; however, it is important to understand that this path of recovery is only suitable for individuals who are medically stable and able to maintain independence without the structure of inpatient or partial hospitalization recovery.

For individuals who are coming out of higher care, or clients who don’t qualify for higher care, eating disorder coaches provide constant support that can help guide a client’s recovery. Since eating disorder coaches work with the other professionals in a client’s treatment team, they act as a manager to help provide some structure in tandem with a client’s everyday life. My experience with my therapist/coach has been revolutionary because she has provided me with support through text and over the phone when I need care in-between sessions, and she has helped me advocate for my health with my psychiatrist, doctor and gastroenterologist. I have space away from her to work on utilizing my coping skills on my own, but I also have her support when I feel like I need that extra help to navigate my eating disorder thoughts and urges.  I attended a partial hospitalization program and intensive outpatient program prior to working with my eating disorder therapist/coach, and her assistance has helped me to adjust to and navigate my day-to-day life post-intensive treatment.

Eating disorders are some of the deadliest mental illnesses, with anorexia nervosa being the deadliest mental illness of all. Recovery often takes many distinct levels of care and spans multiple years, but relapse rates are incredibly high as well, which can prolong the illness. Eating disorder coaches provide a new avenue of care for individuals seeking treatment outside of a treatment facility, and this support often comes at a lower cost due to the peer-to-peer nature of the trade. The treatment of eating disorders is ever-evolving, and I am so thankful for this new treatment method as I navigate recovery in my own day-to-day life. I look forward to seeing how treatment further evolves – and I hope that we can continue to find more ways for individuals to find help that are accessible both physically and financially.  Until then, we still have so much work to do.