Melissa Avrin dog förra året till följd av ätstörningar, 19 år gammal. I en rörande artikel i New York Times beskriver hennes bror en incident där hon letade efter mat:

Once, he explains, in the middle of a bitterly cold night, he looked out the window and saw Melissa on the curb, going through the garbage. ”I went outside and I yelled her name,” he recounts in the interview, his voice breaking. ”Just the way she looked back at me — it was so empty, vacant. It was a deer in the headlights, but that doesn’t even explain it.”

Enligt ”Psychological Treatment of Eating Disorders”, publicerad i American Psychologist, gäller följande:

Significant progress has been achieved in the development and evaluation of evidence-based psychological treatments for eating disorders over the past 25 years. Cognitive behavioral therapy is currently the treatment of choice for bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder, and existing evidence supports the use of a specific form of family therapy for adolescents with anorexia nervosa. Important challenges remain. Even the most effective interventions for bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder fail to help a substantial number of patients.

Mer forskning om hur man bistår personer med denna problematik förefaller alltså viktig. (Det finns en International Journal of Eating Disorders.)