Aubrey's Song to host eating disorders workshop

Eating disorders are prevalent in Kentucky where 900,000 individuals are challenged by the condition, and nearly 30,000 of them are experiencing life-threatening conditions related to eating disorders, according to Executive Director Carolyn Ferber.

The workshop, “Nutrition Counseling in the Management of Eating Disorders,” will be presented by Beth Cecil, a registered dietician.

The goal is to educate clinicians across health care professions about the importance of nutrition counseling in the treatment of those diagnosed with eating disorders, as well as encourage collaboration amongst a patient’s treatment team to sustain the recovery process.

Cecil has treated patients with eating disorders for about 14 years. She said nutrition is one of the first steps in the treatment process to help individuals diagnosed with an eating disorder begin their recovery process.

Therefore, she said, it is important that other health care professionals and clinicians involved with the patient’s health are all connected with the same goal of seeing the patient through recovery, including primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, mental health professionals, etc.

“Collaboration is so important,” she said.

The last time the foundation hosted the workshop, Cecil said there were about 15 participants, mainly nurse practitioners.

This year, she said, the hope is to see clinicians from a variety of different backgrounds getting involved and understanding how to sustain treatment and recovery for patients by learning more about disorders and the role of nutrition therapy.

“Just getting this out there to primary care providers who often see these patients … is really important,” she said. “That really is the goal.”

Nutrition counseling, Ferber said, helps navigate a patient’s understanding of and relationship with food.

For many with eating disorders, she said, there is a negative association with food. Nutrition counseling is meant to help a patient reshape how they think about food and help them regain a healthy body image.

Cecil said the number of patients diagnosed with eating disorders has increased significantly in recent years, making the information more vital than ever to get across to each healthcare platform and increase awareness of eating disorders and how to identify and treat them, beginning with nutrition counseling.

“It’s just a prevalent problem that we’ve seen over the last couple of years. We’ve just seen an explosion of people coming in with different types of eating disorders,” she said. “The quicker a person gets treatment, the more likely they are to get well and stay recovered. Just the urgency in identifying and treating these is important.”

Through the workshop, clinicians will learn nutrition counseling strategies for managing eating disorders, how the role of nutrition affects treatment, appropriate levels of care and when and who to refer patients to, as well as how to identify diagnostic criteria, symptoms and the effects of eating disorders.

“You may not have only noticed that a person has lost a significant amount of weight, but they may have registered a really low blood pressure or their heart rate is decreasing; their hair might be falling out,” she said. “We do talk about some of those warning signs — some of the physical and the emotional side of what goes along with it, such as wanting to eat alone, coming up with excuses to skip meals.”

The workshop will take place Friday, May 20, via Zoom from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Anyone interested in attending can do so by signing up online at AubreysSong.org/Program.

Christie Netherton, cnetherton@messenger-inquirer.com, 270-691-7360