Bulimic teens recover faster when parents involved

A new study has revealed that teens with bulimia recover faster when parents are included in treatment.

Involving parents in the treatment of adolescents with bulimia nervosa is more effective than treating the patient individually, according to the University of California - San Francisco study that is the third and now largest randomized clinical trial for adolescents with bulimia nervosa.

This finding is counter to how clinicians are historically trained to care for adolescents with bulimia, which excludes the parents from treatment and counseling.

Researcher Daniel Le Grange said that parents need to be actively involved in the treatment of kids and teens with eating disorders, adding that this study shows definitively that parental engagement is imperative for a successful outcome of adolescents with bulimia nervosa.

Le Grange noted that it goes counter to the training that physicians receive in psychiatry, which teaches that parents are to blame for bulimia and therefore should be omitted from treatment.

The paper appears online in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.