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The first step towards recovery is to acknowledge and recognise the problem. There has to be a genuine desire to get better, which may involve profound changes in lifestyle behaviour and circumstances. You also need to explore, understand and resolve the underlying issues and feelings which are contributing to the eating disorder, alongside re-shaping and defining attitudes to food and weight.
Realistic targets must be set so that periods spent "treading water" or in relapse are kept short. Recovery is possible, although it is often hard work and the process of re-building can be emotionally difficult, as well as lengthy. Once the energy trapped in anorexia-bulimia begins to be released into the other areas of your life, wonderful things will happen.
Visit our shop for books, or our publications section for information sheets and leaflets. Read some survivors stories to help understand what it is like to have an eating disorder, or view information on how to get help
Suggested reading
- Boys get Anorexia too by Jenny Langley Lucky Duck Publishing 2006 ISBN 1-4129-2022-1
- Making Weight - Healing Mens Conflicts With Food, Weight And Shape by A Anderson, L Cohn, & T Holbrook ISBN 0-936077-35-2 Pub. Gurze Books May 2000
- Males With Eating Disorders Edited by A Anderson Pub. Brunner/Mazel 1990
- My Life as a Male Anorexic by Michael Krasnow ISBN 1-56023-883-6 Pub Harrington Park Press 1996
- Eating Disorders and Obesity Edited by Brownell and Fairburn Pub. Guilford Press 1995 pp 177 to 182
- Fit to Die by Anna Patterson Lucky Duck Publishing 2004
- HGV Man Dr Ian Banks Haynes Publishing Eating Disorders Section written by EDA (now beat)
