Artificial Intelligence in eating disorder treatment?

Welcome to the MHD newsletter. A 3-minute weekly read where you will be encouraged to get reflective with a journal prompt, have relevant reading suggestions with a new book each month and hear about nutrition in the news and what we have going on over in team MHD.

Weekly check in: How are we feeling this sunny Friday? The start of the summer has brought warm weather, I know for some of you this may also bring worries. I hope that you are feeling okay and looking after yourself.

Journal prompt for this week:

What three things would your child self like about your current self?

As you may be able to tell, I love a bit of reflection. This journal prompt sits in the realm of ‘Positive Psychology’, encouraging you to think positively about yourself and consider your qualities and achievements.

Podcast recommendation: Bodywhys podcast Episode 44: Artificial Intelligence and Ethics

To be brutally honest I think the interview style of this podcast is rather dry. However the topic that is being covered is really interesting. Dr Gemma Sharp is a Body Image and Eating Disorders researcher. Her current work is in the development of artificial intelligence models to be used in eating disorder treatment. One of her most recent publications dives into the ethical considerations of this use of AI.

Did you hear about the AI ED chatbot that went rogue last year?

NEDA, an American eating disorders charity made AI chatbot Tessa publicly available for people to access as a support line. The Chatbot was intended to replace all of their paid staff and volunteers who normally work on their helplines. What happened was pretty awful, the chatbot gave harmful diet advice such as ‘avoid unhealthy foods and only eat healthy snacks’. It doesn’t take an expert to know that this language and recommendation is not appropriate for those in recovery. But worse than that, it even recommended weight loss…

Tessa has been down since last summer and no news of her return. I think it has left the eating disorders community fearful of AI and it’s role in treatment.

June Spotlight: Pride month

The end of June brings the end of pride month, there will be pride marches across cities this weekend so do join if you want to experience some queer joy!

Here’s a post we put together looking at the data on Eating Disorders in the LGBTQ+ community:

June Book of the month:

The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler

As this is our last newsletter for June let’s wrap up our read-along book club with some prompts.

If you have been reading along with us consider the following:

• Do you see yourself as a perfectionist now? If yes which type?

• How can you ‘lean into’ the powers that your perfectionist style gives you? Consider ‘adaptive perfectionism’.

• How can you manage maladaptive factors of your perfectionism?

This book was educational for me and certainly something I will consider in my practice as I work with plenty of wonderful perfectionists. I thought the feminist lens was really important. It’s true that society promotes male perfectionists as the pinnacle of success, and female perfectionists as highly strung or problematic.

Choose July’s book of the month

For next month why don’t you help us choose what we read from these options below?

That’s all from us this week, back again same time next week.

Look after yourself <3

Sophie and the team at Mental Health Dietitians.