"Doctors are still dishing out target weights to patients with restrictive eating disorders. They do so sometimes in the form of explicit kg/lb values, sometimes via the detour of body mass index (BMI). Nine years ago, I wrote about the problem of bafflingly low BMI targets in clinical trials, and the trickle-down effects are still everywhere. Why do clinicians use target weights in the treatment of anorexia nervosa?"
"Why do clinicians use target weights in the treatment of anorexia nervosa? I'm less and less convinced by the charitable answers to this question. I suppose that someone somewhere must still genuinely believe (and have evidence to back up the belief) that giving a bodyweight target to someone attempting to recover from an illness that involves caring too much about bodyweight is a good idea."
Bodyweight targets act as disingenuous predictions about an unknowable future point of wellness. Clinicians continue to assign explicit kilogram or pound values or BMI thresholds to people with restrictive eating disorders, producing damaging downstream effects. Assigning a target weight encourages the very dietary restriction and numerical focus that characterizes the illness and can reinforce pathological behaviours. Target weights also fail to account for the physiological likelihood of temporary bodyweight overshoot during refeeding and recovery. Many uses of target weights appear misguided or convenience-driven rather than evidence-based. Multiple reasons render target weights ill-founded and ill-advised.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]