Food has everything to do with eating disorders, from their genesis to their maintenance, management and resolution. Hippocrates said; ‘Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food’, and nowhere is this as true as for the eating disorders where nutritional intervention (NI) is fundamental to treatment. Core goals are getting the patient to eat again and stop weight losing behaviours to reach and maintain normal body weight. Otherwise the sufferer is locked into a vicious cycle of energy wasting by factors related to the emaciation of anorexia nervosa. These include slow gastric emptying, constipation, taste and appetite changes causing “true” anorexia and metabolic impediments to weight gain such as the energy cost of tissue repair and physical restlessness due to low levels of

Case study: Emma

Emma is 17½ years old with anorexia nervosa, binge-purge subtype.