Medical Consequences of Eating Disorders

Do you work with eating disorder clients and often find yourself having conversations about:

• Moving to a higher level of care?
• That yes, your client does have an eating disorder and that it is serious?

Or Would it be helpful to have handouts that walk through the medical complications of malnutrition and eating disorder behaviors to help communicate concern or the seriousness of the behaviors?  Then this handout set is for you!

This comprehensive Medical Consequences: Communicating Concerns About Eating Disorders Handout Set Includes:

• Impact of An Eating Disorder. This handout/checklist reviews psychological, behavioral, and physiological impacts of an eating disorder.  It can be used in many situations, but is great to use this when your client says they don’t have an eating disorder or need a higher level of care.
• Physical Signs & Symptoms of Eating Disorders. This handout identifies body systems (on an outline of a body) that are impacted by an eating disorder and common complications.      
• The Impact of Malnutrition. This handout reviews the starvation studies by Ancel Keys and then provides evidence of how malnutrition directly impacts the body with evidence from the study (2 pages)
• Why a Menstrual Cycle Is Important. This handout reviews what menstruation is, causes of amenorrhea related to disordered eating, and the impact that not having a menstrual cycle has on body systems. (2 pages)
• Level of Care Guidelines for Patients with Eating Disorders Chart. This chart walks through level of care criteria for eating disorder treatment at all levels of care.  It is extremely to helpful to use with clients and parents about why you are recommending a higher level of care.
• Defining Level of Care. This handout explains each level of care and is especially helpful with parents.  The Level of care chart and definition are designed to be printed front and back as one page.
• Resource Guide. This handout includes additional books and publications (includes links) for you to gain additional information as well as some good resources for clients.
• Lab Request Form. This supporting document is a done for you lab request form to support requesting that a physician complete labs for a client.  (Request only not an order.)
• Sample Out Patient Contract. This supporting document is a sample out patient contract to use with clients to define the specific requirements necessary for the client to stay at the out patient level of care.
• Sample Letter to Medical Providers. The supporting document is sample letter to use with medical providers, therapists, or other team members to communicate your concerns about a client and coordinate care.
• Sample Insurance Letter. This supporting document is a sample letter to use with insurance providers to advocate for insurance coverage with a registered dietitian or for a higher level of care.

The total set is available in pdf format and is 30 pages including a cover page and usage letter.  (Not all items are included in the image above.) The set includes two versions of handouts- one with design elements/ color and one that is plain text.  There are 17 unique pages and 9 that are repeated in black and white (plus cover page,  usage letter, and an about the creator page.).  Your purchase also includes any future updates to these handouts.

This comprehensive set of handouts is ready to print and use in session with clients.  They’re great to use with individual appointments and may be appropriate for a group setting. As an International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (IAEDP) Approved Certified Eating Disorder Registered Dietitian Supervisor (CEDS-S) and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, I created these handouts to use in session when the same situations, questions, or concerns kept presenting over and over.  The usage letter included as part of the handout set also includes a few tips/ideas for how to use the handouts. 

This set also includes supporting documents that are intended to be used as a guide and modified to support your client.  In addition to the supporting documents, there is also a page with suggestions for how to tailor these items to best support your clients.  These will save you so much time when you need to coordinate care or advocate for your client with insurance.

Terms and conditions  

This document is to be used as a tool in nutrition counseling or nutrition groups.   It is not intended to replace 1:1 care of the treatment of an eating disorder, disordered eating, other types of nutrition counseling. The author is not responsible for errors, omissions, or individual usage.  All materials are protected under copyright and are only intended for use by the sole individual or entity who purchased the template. 

License: You may not share, sell, or distribute these files to others.  Printed files are permitted for use with clients in individual or group sessions only.  By purchasing and using this file you agree to include copyright information on all pages. You may not remove copyright information.  You may add your logo as long as it doesn’t cover copyright information located at the bottom/center of the page.

Social Media: Should you decide to use the content from these handouts to create social images, please give credit to the creator and tag me (@mysignaturenutrition) as the source.

Because this purchase includes digital files, no refunds will be made

©2020 My Signature Nutrition, LLC.  My Signature Nutrition maintains all rights to the design and files.