The Parent’s Guide to Eating Disorders

Marcia Herrin is the founder of the Dartmouth College Eating Disorders Prevention, Education and TreatmentProgram, one of the most respected programs of its kind in the nation. She is also the author of the professionaltext, "Nutritional Counseling in the Treatment of Eating Disorders" (Brunner-Routledge, 2003). Currently, she runs abusy private practice specializing in children and adults with weight issues and eating disorders. Dr. Herrin receivedher Master's in public health from the University of California at Berkeley, and her doctorate in nutrition educationfrom Columbia University. A sought-after expert on children with eating problems, Dr. Herrin was featured in aPeople magazine cover story on eating disorders on college campuses (which was reported by Nancy Matsumoto)has appeared on The Today Show and 48 Hours, and has been quoted in The New York Times, Shape Magazineand other print media. She has also served as a consultant to a wide variety of public and private universities andschool systems. Nancy Matsumoto is a former staff correspondent for People magazine and a freelance writer. Shewrites human-interest news, entertainment, and medical articles, including numerous stories on health, eatingdisorders, and body image. She has also been a contributor to Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and TheNew York Times, among other publications.

The Parent's Guide to Eating Disorders shows that effective solutions begin at home and cost little more than a healthy investment of time, effort, and love. Based on exciting new research, it differs from similar books in several key ways. Instead of concentrating on the grim, expensive hospital stays of patients with severe disorders, the authors focus on the family, teaching parents how to examine and understand their family's approach to food and body-image issues and its effect their child's behavior. Parents learn to identify an eating disorder early, to establish healthy attitudes toward food at a young age, and to intervene in a nonthreatening, nonjudgmental way. The authors concentrate on teens, the age group most often affected by eating disorders, as well as younger children. Individual chapters cover boys at risk, relapse training, dealing with friends, school, and summer camp, and much more. The book includes an appendix and sections on further reading, organizations and websites, residential and hospital programs, and references.