How does the treatment for eating disorders of older women differ from that of younger women?
It’s common for older women to tell me that when they were younger — and still in denial about their illness — that they bluffed their way through treatment. They would return to eating disorder behaviors as soon as they were done with treatment because they never truly were that motivated to overcome their eating disorder. Now older and wiser, these women may do better with treatment because they no longer have that youthful sense of immortality and they’re more aware of the consequences of their disease, such as osteoporosis. For these reasons, they’re often more motivated to overcome their eating disorder. We still have a long way to go, but treatment programs have progressed substantially in the last two decades. Cognitive behavior therapy for eating disorders — focusing on self-monitoring, homework assignments and goal setting — was in its infancy in the early 1980s. Women treated for eating disorders in midlife may find that the treatment they had 20 years ago offers much greater
