Be Well: How to Identify Signs of An Eating Disorder

<div class="block">Eating disorders continue to be major mental health issue, particularly for teens. Alyssa Mairanz, licensed therapist, joined Cheddar News to provide some clarity and insight into the signs that might signal an eating disorder. </div>

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Welcome to be. Well, will we help you with all aspects of wellness in your life? I'm Shannon Lanier. I'm Elizabeth has and every day we're bringing you the latest in fitness, beauty and food. Plus, keeping you in the know on medical breakthroughs, saving you time and money at home and you already know we're going to be having a whole lot of fun all along the way. Also, you can live life better. Ok. On today's show May is A L S Awareness Month. So we're gonna check out one inspiring group that is raising money to find a cure for Lou Gehrig's disease. Plus it has been a real headache for homeowners. Prices were up then down. Now they're going back up again. Oh, my gosh, we can't keep up. Martin Cantor is here to help us navigate the ever changing housing market and don't let knee pain keep you on the couch. We're gonna show you how to strengthen the muscles around your knee to help you move more easily. This is b well, helping you live life better. They're on a mission to raise money and awareness for als the Ride for Life has been out on Long Island roads and at different schools for 27 years, fighting to find a cure for Lou Gehrig's disease. This year, they're spreading a message of hope and keeping their founders memory alive. This is the A L S Ride for life. Guys ready to make some noise, the funds that are raising. They go towards helping out all us A L S patients ride for life goes for two weeks. You guys are awesome. The ride has been doing this for 27 years guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We visit schools all across Long Island, Nassau Suffolk this year. I think we're hitting about 70 schools so much. You know, it was 27 years ago when the founder of the A L S right for life. Chris Pendergast started the right for life and he started the right for life because he wanted to raise more awareness about this horrible, horrific disease. And he knew that if he reached out to students being a former Northport educator, that students would help you. Students have helped raise over $11 billion. You guys are my heroes. We definitely need your energy to get us going. Trying to bring a message of hope to the student right now. A s there's still no cure, there's still no medicine to slow it down really, you know, terminal it is, it's a very isolating disease. You know, as you slowly become paralyzed. Hello. Hi guys. Good. Morning Phillips Avenue. Yes, we're trying to keep hope alive. Most importantly, we're trying to keep what Chris started alive. The ride has given me a life. I mean, I thank Chris almost every day because when I was diagnosed, there was nothing. You know, what are you gonna do? They told you you have three years left to live. When I met Chris, he gave me a new purpose in life. My name is Christine. My husband founded a Ride for life. One of your classmates asked me if I missed Chris. No one had ever asked me that. And I told her that, of course, I miss Chris. But the more I spoke about him, the more he would continue to be alive and that his legacy, amazing awareness of students caring about A L S and supporting A L S that movement would never go away. I'm the last link between Chris and the Ride and hopefully the new A L S warriors to keep it going after me that where you are. And Paul has been living with A L S for more than 10 years and says he will continue to deliver this message of hope to students and keep those patients going and keep going for that has that purpose to live. Right. Great job. Great. All right. Well, if you're a parent of a teenager, you wanna listen up because eating disorders are on the rise among teens. And so what should you be on the lookout for if you are concerned. What about your kids? What should they be doing? I sat down with a licensed therapist to find out I'm here with Alyssa Moran, licensed therapist and owner of Empower your mind therapy and talk about everything we need to know about eating disorders when it comes to our teens. So, Alyssa, thank you so much for joining us. This is a, such a serious and important topic. So help some of us parents out. What are some of the things we should look for if there are, may be signs of eating disorders with our teens? Yeah. Well, first off, thank you for having me. It is such an important topic. Um, some of the signs that are important to look at are if there is any excessive change in weight, if they're wearing baggy clothing, um, going to the bathroom or excusing themselves immediately after meals. Um, and if you see like chronic dieting or obsession around food and how much they're eating once we see these signs, how can we then approach our Children and address some of these issues in a positive manner? So they're not threatened by what we may be saying or we don't go overboard with what we're saying. The most important thing is to go in neutral. I think a lot of parents go in with excessive concern and then the child might feel guilty or feel less comfortable talking to the parent and you go in, you know, calm and just talk to your child, have an open communication, ask them what's going on. And then you can just point out some things you notice that bring you some concern and first ask them how you can support them. OK? And then how can we find the right help? Because a lot of times we don't know how to help them. And so I think it's important to have resources on hand to be able to help them or get professionals to help them. I should say, yeah. And so it's important to, you know, look for a therapist that talks about specializing with both teens and with eating. Um you can look for eating disorder, uh body image, self esteem, things like that. And I also think it's important that parents maybe look for support themselves on dealing with their own stress around helping their teen or just general life because that stuff translates into how their teen interacts with them. Right? And I also see kids picking up on certain things like if their parents say they're on a diet and the kids are like, oh, I need to go on a diet and we're like, no, you don't calm down, you're a kid just be a kid. Enjoy life, eat stuff and you know, but trying to teach them to be healthy and not to eat fried food. It it's a balance there and trying to teach them good to bad but not fear what's on the other side. Right. Definitely. And again, it comes back to neutrality, you know, talking to your teens about food, not as good or bad, but as about hunger cues, you know, allowing yourself to treat yourself to sometimes but think about, you know, impact of food and just talk about relationship around food and, and how they feel and what when they feel more energized versus where they might feel more sluggish or, you know, get stomach aches or things like that. And earlier you mentioned self esteem and body image. How would you say that social media is playing a role into these eating disorders? We're seeing, I think it leaves a lot of room for comparison that we didn't used to have, you know, I grew up without social media and I see it even now as an adult putting everything in your face, you know, and so when you compare yourself a lot more to other people, it's likely that you're gonna have a lower self esteem or lower body image. And there's also so much out there that just promotes distorted views about eating and just beauty standards. And so that gets really ingrained into teens minds. So how do you think we can encourage our Children to have a healthy relationship with not only food but also social media? Yeah. Communicate, you know, talk to them about the impact of social media, talk to them about having positive people that they're following on their news feed and then make time where you shut it off. Maybe family dinners, everyone puts their phone away, homework time, put your phone away and just help them set boundaries. So they're not constantly scrolling. And what do you think is a healthy way to talk to your kids if you are concerned about their weight because you don't want to give them a complex. But if you see they're going down the wrong path, they're eating too much or eating too late, they're eating too frequently. How do you pull them back a little bit without giving them a complex about it? I think you kind of go to like medically and so say, you know what, let's go for a wellness checkup. Let's check your blood work. Let's see what's going on there because um parents can also project their own image on weight and when they're concerned. And so you always want to think about it from, you know, a health standpoint. Um in the therapy world, we talk about hay health at any size. And so it's really just about is your body functioning and only really a medical doctor can tell you that. Yeah, and that's why it's always good to consult the experts. Yeah. All right, Lisa, thank you so much for this important conversation. We appreciate you having me data from the centers for disease control. Show 70% of cardiac arrests happen at home. Yeah, but about half of those people don't get the help they need before the ambulance arrives. As Gillian Neff reports, there's a new call to action aimed at adults and kids little once, keep learning what it takes to help save someone's life. Before the ambulance arrives, they've suddenly collapsed. They're not breathing normally, maybe they're gasping for air. But oftentimes people don't recognize it soon enough, nine out of 10 people will not survive. Emergency physician, Camilla Sasson helped write a statement with the American Heart Association to stress how important it is for everyone, including Children to know what to do in an emergency. She says young Children need to know their home address and know to quickly call 911. We practiced about how to use the phone and tell them, hey, look, this is where I live. I need help. That's Assassin says for every minute, a person in cardiac arrest doesn't get CPR their chances of survival go down by 10%. And she says older Children who have enough strength can be trained to administer CPR to help keep the patient's blood flowing until EMTS arrive. I'm health reporter Gillian. Nat, thanks again to our reporter Gillian there. But such an important topic, especially we've been seeing so many people, people suffer this similar kind of situation and they always say they say it's good to put the best song in your head. Staying alive by the beach because then it gives you the right tempo. But it's, it's all like if you, I don't know if you've ever gotten CPR certified, but when you do it, the, the pressure that you need to put is a lot more than you initially think to actually really make a difference. But the first thing you need to do is call that 911. Yeah. Smart tips there for everyone to make sure you go ahead and get certified just in case you never know when you'll need it. Absolutely. Well, the housing market has been on this wild ride. So where is it going next? Marty Cantor has the answer. And after making your morning cup of coffee, don't throw away those grounds. We'll show you how to reuse them all around your house, even in your yard you're watching be well, helping you live life better.