Day treatment program provides hope to youth with eating disorders

Eating disorders are the deadliest of mental illnesses—the mortality rate for people with anorexia nervosa, for example, is between 10 to 15 per cent. About one million Canadians live with an eating disorder and the significant physical and psychological implications.

“When you starve someone’s brain, they’re unable to function, they can’t think as clearly,” says Dr. Neal Anzai, a well-regarded expert in the field of adolescent mental health and eating disorders. “Their whole world shrinks down and they can’t see the bigger picture, and that contributes to feeling trapped. They feel like the only way to control their life is to control their weight.”

If adolescents are treated for eating disorders early, they have a much better chance of becoming healthy adults. But oftentimes families don’t know where to seek help and their child ends up in and out of hospital emergency departments.

That’s why the new Eating Disorders day treatment program at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby is a game-changer. Led by Dr. Anzai, the unit’s new medical director, the program keeps youth in their own community and out of inpatient care.

Eating disorders can be caused by genetics, biology and psychological health; they can also be related to trauma. The reason treatment is complicated is because it’s usually related to other disorders, such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“We can help with all those things because we’re treating the entire teenager, not just the eating disorder,” says Dr. Anzai. “We often end up treating two or three things at once.”

Dr. Anzai joined Ontario Shores after being recruited from one of California’s largest health systems. Based on decades’ of experience, he believes the best way to treat adolescent eating disorders is through a seamless continuum of care.

That continuum means earlier and more timely assessment, access to region-wide outpatient programs and services, and a hospital-based day treatment program.

The Adolescent Eating Disorder Day Treatment Program creates a new level of care for youth with eating disorders (ages 12 to 17), alongside an outpatient partnership between Ontario Shores and Kinark.

Youth attend the program five days a week, for three to six months. While in the program, they continue their schooling, participate in individual, group and family-based therapy, and practice preparing meals and eating with family members. This is done within the safe and supportive environment of Ontario Shores.

The most acute youth continue to receive inpatient treatment at Ontario Shores, which remains the largest inpatient program in Ontario treating older children and teens with severe eating disorders.

Over the next four years, Ontario Shores aims to raise $6 million to close a glaring gap in the continuum of care for eating disorders.

In addition to the day treatment program, Ontario Shores has built a new space that includes an integrated classroom and kitchen, as well as creating a new Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Eating Disorders to translate clinical research into better treatments for patients.

“These are wonderful kids,” says Dr. Anzai. “We do this because they are so different when they recover—they’re that bright kid again who has all these dreams.”

Donating to the Ontario Shores Foundation keeps adolescents with eating disorders close to home, with friends and family, and gives them hope for a healthy future.

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