A study by clinical psychologists and researchers at Bournemouth University has found that a new online treatment can help eating disorder thoughts and behaviours.
The team developed a series of five videos and an accompanying booklet.
The videos aim to normalise emotions and bring awareness of the role they play in eating disorders.
They also provide help to better identify and manage difficult emotions.
Dr Laura Renshaw-Vuillier, Principal Academic in Psychology at Bournemouth University, who led the study, said: “People with eating disorders, particularly those with bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder, have to wait a long time to receive treatment – sometimes years.
“The sad fact is that not everybody fully recovers after treatment, with studies finding that up to fifty or sixty percent will still have symptoms.”
Most current treatments mainly focus on helping a patient regain or maintain a healthy weight by eating more regularly and avoiding bingeing or purging the food they consume.
Dr Renshaw-Vuillier said: “That is really important, but it is not the whole story because it is addressing the symptoms rather than the reasons people are getting to that stage in the first place.”
Thirty nine men and women with eating disorders took part in the pilot study.
At the beginning they completed a questionnaire about their emotions, anxiety levels and eating disorder thoughts and behaviours amongst others.
They then spent a week watching the videos and completing the exercises in the workbook before completing the questionnaire again.
The results showed a significant reduction in symptoms of anxiety and depression among the participants.
Many said that understanding their emotions had helped them reduce their eating disorder behaviours.
One female participant said: “I’m responding to my emotions in a more patient manner as well as not engaging in unhealthy coping mechanisms the past week such as eating less or self-harming.
“I feel that I have found alternative ways to cope that actually feel just as effective and make far more sense.”
A male participant said: “It’s changed my life and helped me to heal.
“I have already found I am worrying much less.
“Sleeping much better. Getting on with things without blocks of procrastination, worry and lack of energy.”
Dr Renshaw-Vuillier said: “I did not expect the results to be as good as they were after just a week.
“To see such reductions in eating disorder behaviour, anxiety and depression was amazing.
“Whilst it was only a short trial period, we achieved a shift in thinking about emotions and helped to normalise them for the people taking part.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done, including further exploring the potential risks, but these preliminary results are very exciting.”
The team has now received funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to further develop the programme with patients waiting for treatment for eating disorders on the NHS.
It will allow the researchers to further test and refine the video content based on feedback from patients and clinicians, and to consider how the programme could be implemented as a treatment plan in national healthcare systems.