Fighting the Idea that Eating Disorders Can Be Terminal

Hello and welcome to the MHD Newsletter. Your short educational read to enjoy with your Friday morning coffee. 

The aim of the newsletter is to provide you with new knowledge, share research and debunk misinformation. We’ll also get reflective with a journal prompt, give you relevant reading suggestions with a new book each month and tell you about what we have going on over at team MHD.

Weekly check in:

Good morning and happy Friday! We’re coming up to the end of the summer so it’s time to get planning those day trips, outdoor dates and adventures that you said you would do this year. For me, I have wanted to have a picnic date in my local park so that’s my plan for this evening.

Trigger warning:

This week in the newsletter, we're tackling a heavy and sensitive topic: the harmful perception that eating disorders can be terminal. Please ensure you're in the right frame of mind before diving in, as we’ll be discussing issues related to assisted suicide in eating disorders.

Podcast Recommendation:

I was inspired to write about this topic after listening to a powerful episode of the Full of Beans Podcast titled "Treatable not terminal: Assisted Suicide in Eating Disorders."

It's a thought-provoking discussion on the controversial topic of assisted suicide in people with eating disorders. The discussion is between Hannah, podcast host with lived experience (who is actually working with MHD to help us with our content creation and blogging), and Chelsea Roff and Catherine Cook-Cottone who are both ED therapists and researchers who also have lived experience.

Chelsea and Catherine decided to do their own research after hearing that people in the US and the Netherlands were receiving diagnoses of ‘terminal anorexia’ and being given assisted suicide.

If you haven’t listened yet but would be interested and feel safe to listen to this, then I would really recommend it. You can check it out here. (Pre-warning, I did cry while listening to it).

Research Highlight:

The episode led me to explore the research discussed in it.

Their study, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, critically examines the idea of assisted suicide in patients with severe eating disorders. They found concerning gaps in the recording of cases where assisted suicide was given. They also found clinical rationales for giving assisted suicide did not correlate to current evidence based practice, some people being given assisted suicide before having even basic eating disorder interventions.

It questions the assumption that long-term eating disorders are inevitably terminal, emphasising that with appropriate care, these conditions remain treatable. You can read the full study here.

While eating disorders are undoubtedly serious and can be life-threatening, they are not beyond treatment, regardless of how severe or long standing. It’s crucial to reinforce that recovery is possible, regardless of how long someone has been struggling, otherwise we risk destroying the hope of many people.

Journal Prompts:

If you are reading this as someone in recovery, I want you to take a moment this weekend to reflect on the role of hope in your own recovery or mental health journey.

Here are some journal prompts:

• What does hope mean to you in the context of your recovery?

• How has your sense of hope evolved over time?

• What actions or thoughts help you cultivate hope when things feel tough?

August Book of the month:

Next week will be the last week of August’s book club before we discuss the book and set a new one for September. (Reminder to self to hurry up and finish this book).

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.

We’d love to hear from you! Replies to the email are sent directly to our team inbox. We welcome any comments, questions and feedback!