Finding Eating Disorder Support Online

Eating disorders are serious medical and emotional illnesses, and those struggling with anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, or general disordered eating are encouraged to seek regular, ongoing professional treatment from expert caregivers. The eating disorder treatment team most often includes a therapist and a medical doctor, and possibly a psychiatrist and nutritionist as well. Eating disorder clients typically have regularly scheduled appointments, but often only see their providers in person at most weekly, and often less frequently, depending on the severity of their specific illness and symptoms. In between private appointments with professional health providers, individuals may attend a support group or a day or evening treatment program.

Progress toward wellness can be time-consuming and requires tremendous follow-through and commitment. Even with these many scheduled and structured professional supports, individuals working to recover from eating disorders may still need -- and want -- to reach out and connect, when they are feeling especially at-risk, to know that they are not alone and isolated in their medical and emotional struggle. Fortunately, reliable and educational support is available from many valuable and well-monitored eating disorder recovery web sites. This article reviews four of the major online eating disorder support and education web sites. These sites are monitored and/or endorsed by professional treatment providers. Readers can be confident that the site content is researched and is maintained by the organizations affiliated with each of the sites.