Oh THOSE people

My intention after my initial back to blogging post was to write three posts, one on each of the reasons why I am still FEASTing and then publish the lot (and be damned to indifference or "what's a blog?" I expect).

However today, while I have proper work to do on the most important part of why I was ever FEASTing in the first place, meeting friends from around the world, I have become distracted, much as my eldest granddaughter does by the sweets and toys in the supermarket by discussion on treatment types and exactly what FEAST is.

I have heard that FEAST is "American" (sadly an insult as used at the time). It is not. The board and the professional advisors come from as far afield as the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, the UK and Greece. Members come from more countries than that.

I have heard that FEAST has fixed ideas perhaps particularly as to cause. In the same day I head that FEAST has rigid ideas about eating disorders being brain disorders and food being the magic bullet, and that FEAST is clinging on irrationally to agnosticism as to cause - they can't both be right.

I have heard that FEAST is only about one form of treatment. It isn't. Members have used many forms of treatment or found none. Families have gone dancing off into the recovered sunset after successful treatment (be that outpatient, inpatient, residential treatment or a combination) others of us are still not quite there and may even after years be wondering quite what we are treating. Some families have lost their children.

I could blab on forever, but I don't have to. All I have to do is to post this. THIS is what THOSE people believe although there's a lot more detail on the rest of the website
https://www.feast-ed.org/

1. Eating disorders are biologically based mental illnesses and fully treatable with a combination of nutritional, medical, and therapeutic supports.
2. Parents do not cause eating disorders, and patients do not choose eating disorders.
3. Parents and caregivers can be a powerful support for a loved one’s recovery from an eating disorder.
4. Blaming and marginalizing parents in the eating disorder treatment process causes harm and suffering.
5. Patients should receive evidence-based treatment, when available.
6. Families should be supported in seeking the most appropriate treatment in the least restrictive environment possible.
7. Food is medicine: all treatment should include urgent and ongoing nutritional rehabilitation.
8. When the family is supported, the patient is supported.
9. Siblings and parents are affected by a family member’s illness; their needs deserve full attention, too.
10. Parents have a unique capacity to help other parents with support, information, and the wisdom of experience.
11. F.E.A.S.T. is committed to a coalition-building model of advocacy work that requires mutual respect among caregivers, professionals, and patients.