Nutrition Improvement Center
What does an eating disorder actually feel like from the inside? Families, caregivers, and even experienced professionals never get the complete picture. They see the behaviors. They rarely see what is happening in the body and mind that drives them. I’m Iris Epstein, RDN, CEDS, CAI, and for 25 years I’ve helped individuals, families, and professionals understand anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID, and body image struggles well enough to move recovery forward. Each week, I explain what your loved one or client may be feeling, what parents should know, and what to do about it. Expect the hot topics and the ones nobody else is covering. No shame. No blame. No guesswork. Subscribe free and become better equipped to help yourself or someone you care about.
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Why Cholesterol Rises in Anorexia Nervosa
When Cholesterol Rises During Anorexia: What's Really Going On Hi Reader, If a recent lab result showed high cholesterol during anorexia recovery, the number probably did not make sense. Less food coming in should mean a lower number, not a higher one. But this is one of the most common, well studied findings in anorexia nervosa, showing up in somewhere between 16 and 39 percent of patients depending on the study, often high enough that it would prompt a serious conversation about medication...
READ POST"Food Noise" What It Really Means in Eating Disorders
What "Food Noise" Really Means in Eating Disorders Hi Reader, Nearly one in five American adults say they experience "food noise" often or always. It is the relentless background chatter about food: what to eat, what not to eat, when the next meal is, whether you have earned it. For people living with binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, or anorexia nervosa, that noise rarely travels alone. It arrives with body image noise and with shame. Much of the public conversation right now is about...
READ POSTWhen “I’m fine” isn’t safe anymore
They're an adult. They refuse help. What can a family actually do? Hi Reader, When a family calls me in a crisis, one of the first questions is: “Can we make them go?” The answer depends on where you live, and most families learn their state’s rules for the first time in an emergency room. No state has a hold law written specifically for eating disorders. Every state allows a short-term involuntary psychiatric evaluation when mental illness creates serious risk. The question is whether...
READ POSTThe Hidden Roles of Estrogen in Women's Eating Disorder Recovery
The Hidden Roles of Estrogen in Women's Eating Disorder Recovery Hi Reader, Estrogen is best known for two jobs: protecting bones and making pregnancy possible. Its role in the heart sometimes joins that list. All three are real and all three matter, yet together they describe only a small part of what this hormone does. Estrogen receptors sit in the brain, skin, blood vessels, liver, muscle, tendons, and fat tissue. Estrogen helps fuel the brain, set the body's thermostat, build collagen,...
READ POSTWhen an eating disorder and addiction show up together
Eating Disorders and Other Addictions: When They Co-Occur Hi Reader, Over the past year, more of what I read has come from the world of addiction recovery and family systems. The more I read, the more I recognize. The secrecy. The insistence that everything is under control. The family walking on eggshells. The setback that arrives right after everyone finally exhales. Eating disorders and addiction share far more than most people realize, and they frequently co-occur. Many people who have an...
READ POST"You don't have to fix the holidays. Just notice them."
Holiday Information Building: Collect Now, Explore Later Hi Reader, For most people, the holidays bring anticipation, familiar recipes, and a table full of people they love. For someone in eating disorder recovery, and for the families walking beside them, that same season can feel like every comfort has been rearranged into a challenge. The food is different. The timing is different. The people at the table are different, and some of them bring opinions nobody asked for. What is joyous for...
READ POSTA Free Resource for the Families on Your Caseload
Hi Reader, Most families I work with arrive with the same question: what am I supposed to actually do at the table? The meal plan tells them what to serve. It doesn't tell them what to say when their child pushes the plate away, or how to recover after a meal that went badly. That gap is where caregivers lose confidence, and where progress made in session can quietly unravel at home. I created a free Meal Support Starter Kit for exactly that moment. It includes three short handouts: A...
READ POST"Weight restored, still not okay? Read this"
The gap between weight restored and actually okay Hi Reader, I want to say something out loud that I don't think gets said enough. If you're reading this email, whether you are the one in recovery, a parent or caregiver walking alongside someone, or a professional supporting families through this, there's a good chance part of you is waiting for a moment that hasn't arrived yet. Meals are happening. Maybe weight is restored. Labs look normal. And yet something still feels unfinished. Food...
READ POSTWhy does everyone else get to shrink but me?
When Everyone Around You Is Shrinking: Staying Grounded in Recovery During the GLP-1 Moment Hi Reader, Watching someone shrink easily, while you or someone you love is recovering from an eating disorder that requires more food, more weight, and less comparison, is one of the harder moments this particular cultural shift has created. Clients doing the work of recovery and the families and caregivers walking alongside them are both being asked to hold something difficult right now, and neither...
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