Eating disorders manifest themselves through various symptoms. Sometimes it results in voluntary restriction of food intake that leads to anorexia nervosa. On the other hand, eating disorders often force people to overeat and vomit afterwards. It is called bulimia nervosa. At least 9% of the world population is affected by eating disorders. More than 10,000 people die each year as a direct consequence of an eating disorder.
Regardless of all the challenges, getting rid of eating disorders is an achievable pursuit. With proper advice and guidance, one can easily hop out of the clutches of this disorder. There are several books and workbooks available online that help to gain understanding about this disorder and provide guidelines on how to get out of it. In this article, we try to cut the clutter and help you select five best workbooks on eating disorders.
8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder Workbook
This highly praised workbook has been co-authored by Carolyn Costin and Gwen Schubert Grabb. Apart from being a revered eating disorder specialist, Carolyn is also an activist, a therapist, an author, and the founder of Monte Nido Treatment Center. Gwen Schubert Grabb is a psychotherapist based out of Palos Verdes Peninsula, California.
This workbook is a perfect blend of clinical expertise and personal experience. Here, Carolyn and Gwen have compiled the feedback they received from their patients who’ve benefitted from their treatment. Then they’ve structured this feedback within a specific clinical framework. The combination of these two has resulted in something that is clinically proven and anecdotal at the same time. The aspect of practicality is what makes this book a compelling read. Filled with practical exercises, goal sheets, food journal forms, clinical anecdotes, and stories, the book serves the strategies to cure an eating disorder most intriguing and credibly possible.
The Intuitive Eating Workbook: Ten Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food
Co-authored by Evelyn Trible, Elyse Resch, and Tracy Tylka, this book is one of the best available self-help books on eating disorders. The book teaches us to see eating as an intuitive process. Often our eating habits are guided by societal norms and our perceptions about our body and weight. We often feel distressed around food and often suffer from a negative body image. These feelings eventually lead us to unnatural eating.
Through the ten principles, this book helps us identify our natural eating cues. It connects eating with hunger and frees it from the social constructs that shape our habits most of the time. It connects us back to our age-old wisdom: one meal at a time.
The Binge Eating Prevention Workbook
This workbook takes a holistic look at the phenomenon of binge eating. Co-authored by Gia Marson and Danielle Keenan-Miller, it teaches us to recognize the triggers of binge eating. Subsequently, it tells us how to resist ourselves from binge eating by controlling our emotions. It shows us how the dynamics of our immediate environment often compels us to binge-eat. Following this workbook helps us to combat the negative and depressing emotions and improve our relationships. Improved relationships and positive emotions are what ultimately help us to get out of the grip of an eating disorder.
The Emotional Eating Workbook
The writer of this workbook, Carolyn Coker Ross, shifts the focus away from food-specific diets to taking care of one’s emotional health. Overeating is often driven by unchecked emotions. Efforts to cure it with types of diets is futile exercise. The book investigates the psychological needs that force us towards overeating. It teaches us how to cope with these needs through mindfulness. With the help of this workbook, one would be able to locate ways to feel satisfaction that they search for in their food.
Eating Disorders: The Journey to Recovery Workbook
This book has been co-authored by Laura Goodman and Mona Villapiano. Apart from being a licensed mental health counselor, Laura specializes in treating eating disorders. Mona, a clinical psychologist, also specializes in the treatment of eating disorders.
The book sees the eating disorder as a psychosocial phenomenon. It examines the disorder as a result of several extraneous factors such as trauma, depression, gender identity, abuse, etc. It also investigates the role that the media plays in endorsing unnatural eating habits. The book is perfect for learning at one’s own pace. It also provides instructions on how to practice what one has learned.
The latest edition of the book has been updated to include all forms of eating disorder: selective eating, voluntary restrictions in food intake, and binge-eating disorder.