Montare Behavioral Health
Eating Disorder Treatment in Los Angeles, CA
Comprehensive behavioral health treatment facilities for adults in a safe and comforting atmosphere in Southern California.
Montare’s eating disorder treatment center in Los Angeles, CA is a residential program involving individualized therapy. Montare Behavioral Health has five beautiful residential locations, including an eating disorder treatment center in Los Angeles, California.
What is An Eating Disorder?
Eating disorders are severe and sometimes fatal illnesses associated with severe disturbances in an individual’s eating behaviors and related thoughts and emotions. A professional eating disorder treatment program is often the only way a person can learn how to overcome the struggle of an eating disorder.
Some individuals can become so preoccupied with food and weight issues that they find it hard to focus on any other aspects of life including personal relationships, family, and work. Studies suggest that 1 in 20 people will be affected by an eating disorder at some point in their lives. An individual with an eating disorder is preoccupied with thoughts about food, body weight, and shape.
Although eating disorders are commonly associated with women, men can develop eating disorders as well. Common eating disorders we treat at our eating disorder treatment center in Los Angeles include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. Other types of eating disorders include rumination disorder and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.
What Qualifies as an Eating Disorder?
Eating disorders are considered severe mental illnesses. Experts characterize eating disorders as an array of psychological conditions rooted in unhealthy eating habits. Each condition involves extreme food and weight issues. However, every type of eating disorder has unique symptoms that separate it from others. The chance of successful recovery from an eating disorder is greater when it is detected early. We can help you determine if you do qualify for an eating disorder and if you would benefit from treatment at our eating disorder treatment center in Los Angeles, CA.
It is important to be knowledgeable and aware of the warning signs of an eating disorder. A person struggling with an eating disorder won’t necessarily exhibit all of the signs and symptoms at the same time, and they can vary based on the specific eating disorder.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, symptoms include:
- Extremely restricted eating
- Extreme thinness (emaciation)
- A relentless pursuit of thinness and unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy weight
- Intense fear of gaining weight
- Distorted body image, a self-esteem that is heavily influenced by perceptions of body weight and shape, or a denial of the seriousness of low body weight
Other symptoms may develop over time, including:
- Thinning of the bones (osteopenia or osteoporosis)
- Mild anemia and muscle wasting, and weakness
- Brittle hair and nails
- Dry and yellowish skin
- Growth of fine hair all over the body (lanugo)
- Severe constipation
- Infertility
What’s the Most Serious Eating Disorder?
Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the two most serious eating disorders. Many individuals with anorexia will likely develop bulimia. If treated early, the devastating physical effects of anorexia and bulimia can be reversed. However, if left untreated, these eating disorders can be life-threatening. At Montare, our eating disorder treatment in Los Angeles, CA specializes in therapy for both anorexia and bulimia.
Anorexia Nervosa
Individuals with anorexia nervosa will deny themselves food to the point of starvation. In addition, they often see themselves as overweight, even when they are dangerously underweight. Individuals will obsess about weight loss, deny hunger, refuse to eat, practice binge eating and purging behaviors, as well as exercise to the point of exhaustion. Individuals with anorexia will also weigh themselves repeatedly and use laxatives to lose weight. Consequently, individuals practiced these behaviors to limit or burn calories. As a result, anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental disorder- and while some individuals die from the complications associated with starvation, others die from suicide. Emotional symptoms of anorexia include irritability, social withdrawal, apathy, fear of eating in public, and a deep obsession with food and/or exercise. Food rituals are developed as a way to take the fear out of being “fat.” As a result, low food intake and inadequate nutrition can cause a person to become very thin. Thus, that person’s body is forced to slow down to conserve energy, which results in loss of menstruation, constipation, irregular heart rhythms, trouble sleeping, low blood pressure, and dehydration. Some individuals with anorexia may also exhibit binge eating and purging behaviors, while others may just restrict eating.According to the National Institute of Mental Health, symptoms include:
- Extremely restricted eating
- Extreme thinness (emaciation)
- A relentless pursuit of thinness and unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy weight
- Intense fear of gaining weight
- Distorted body image, a self-esteem that is heavily influenced by perceptions of body weight and shape, or a denial of the seriousness of low body weight
Bulimia Nervosa
Individuals with bulimia often feel out of control when binging on large amounts of food and will then desperately try to rid themselves of the extra food and calories. This condition involves forced vomiting, abuse of laxatives, and excessive exercise. The behavior will demonstrate in a repeating cycle that controls most aspects of a person’s life. This cycle of binging and purging and the behavior associated with it has negative effects both physically and emotionally. People with bulimia may be slightly underweight, have a normal weight, or be overweight.
Emotional symptoms of bulimia include low self-esteem, feelings of being out of control, feelings of guilt and shame about eating, and social isolation.
Bulimia inflicts physical damage and hurts an individual’s overall health. Binging and purging have damaging effects on various parts of the body. Additionally, excessive vomiting can cause irreversible damage to the individual’s teeth. Purging leads to dehydration that can cause cardiac arrhythmias, heart failure, and sometimes death.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, symptoms include:
- Eating unusually large amounts of food in a specific amount of time, such as a 2-hour period
- Eating even when you’re full or not hungry
- Eating fast during binge episodes
- Eating until you’re uncomfortably full
- Eating alone or in secret to avoid embarrassment
- Feeling distressed, ashamed, or guilty about your eating
- Frequently dieting, possibly without weight loss
Binge-Eating Disorder
A person suffering from binge-eating disorder will overeat on a regular basis (binge) due to a lack of control over his or her eating. That person may eat really quickly or eat more food than intended when he or she isn’t hungry. Sometimes the individual will continue to eat long after they feel full to the point of being uncomfortable.
Usually, after a binge, a person experiences feelings of guilt or disgust and shame by his or her behavior and the amount of food intake. The difference between binge-eating disorder and bulimia or anorexia is that people with binge-eating disorder do not try to compensate for this behavior with excessive exercise or vomiting. The embarrassment of binge-eating can often lead to eating alone as a way to hide behavior.
These are some symptoms and signs of binge-eating disorders:
- Secret behavior– the individual will binge when he or she is alone; this behavior can happen late at night or in a restaurant parking lot. The person may even hide the wrappers and food containers as a way to get rid of the evidence.
- Food Hoarding– stockpiling food like bags of chips or cookies in a closet or under the bed
- Lack of control– feeling powerless over the ability to stop eating, which leads to being uncomfortably full after a binge
- Abnormal eating pattern– eating lightly throughout the day without a set meal schedule, or eating a small amount at mealtimes, or skipping meals altogether
- Food rituals– over chewing or not allowing foods to touch on a plate. They may only eat from certain food groups.
- No purging– the absence of behaviors to get rid of unwanted extra calories, like vomiting, exercising excessively, or taking laxatives.
Rumination Disorder
This disorder is the act of repeatedly and constantly regurgitating food after eating, but it is not because the person has a medical condition or is suffering from one of the other eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia, or binge-eating. The food is brought back up into the mouth without nausea or gagging, and the regurgitation may not be intentional.
This disorder can cause malnutrition if food is continuously spat out or if the individual eats a significantly lower amount of food to avoid this type of behavior. Rumination disorder may show up more in infancy or with people who have an intellectual disability.
ARFID – Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
Experts categorize ARFID as a person’s failure to meet minimum daily nutrition requirements because they have a lack of interest in eating. In addition, such people tend to avoid food with specific sensory characteristics, like color, texture, smell, or taste. Sometimes the individual associates fear with the consequences of eating, like choking. This disorder is different from the others because they do not actively avoid food because of the fear of gaining weight.
This disorder can result in extreme weight loss or failure to gain the necessary weight in childhood. It can also be the cause of nutritional deficiencies that can lead to other health problems.
Benefits of Our Eating Disorder Treatment Center in Los Angeles, CA
Our Los Angeles eating disorder treatment program offers a well-rounded variety of therapies proven to help individuals overcome their eating disorders. These include Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure Response Prevention (ERP), and Somatic Therapies.
While in our care, each person has access to a range of eating disorder professionals who help ensure everyone’s safety, comfort, and ability to make progress. Our professionals include:
- Therapists
- Registered Dietitian (RD)
- Psychiatrist
- MD
- Nurses (RN and LVN)
- Chef
- Mental Health Workers
Our treatment plans are family-focused to help families come together in the healing process. We keep the families updated about their loved one’s progress and they learn how to communicate more effectively with each other. We also provide community engagement by taking our patients on supervised outings to restaurants and shops to help them become comfortable assimilating into activities that formerly caused discomfort and fear.
Our expert staff teaches people to replace eating disorder behaviors with healthy coping skills. Our goal is to completely change the relationship each person has with food so that they can enjoy a more relaxed approach to it. We also can provide any necessary medications that help control symptoms such as anxiety or depression.
Getting Help at Our Eating Disorder Treatment Center in Los Angeles, CA
Montare Behavioral Health’s eating disorder treatment center in Los Angeles, CA, utilizes individualized treatment plans in a therapeutic environment in order to treat eating disorders. Treatment plans include body image therapy, family therapy, group therapy, individual therapy, nutrition therapy, exercise, neurofeedback, recreational therapy, and various holistic treatments. Often the sooner one enrolls in eating disorder treatment, the better off he or she will be.
For those individuals who are experiencing the symptoms of eating disorders, seeking an eating disorder treatment center in Los Angeles can be beneficial and even life-saving. At Montare Behavioral Health, we offer individualized eating disorder treatment plans to help you restore a sense of control to your life. Call us today at (855) 782-5553 to learn more about how Montare Behavioral Health in Los Angeles can help you overcome eating disorders.
