For Medical Providers

 

The American Academy of Pediatrics' hospitalization criteria for anorexia and bulimia nervosa can be found here.

 

We offer in-patient medical stabilization (at Legacy Emanuel Children's Hospital), a day treatment (aka "partial hospitalization") program, as well as outpatient follow-up services for boys and girls ages 6-21. For sources of referral for patients older than this please go to the National Eating Disorder Association's referral page .

 

Primary care physicians, psychiatrists, and therapists often ask us what warning signs we look for in a patient. The following is not an exhaustive list, but covers some common signs based on more than 1300 patients since 1998 :

 

  • please refer them if you have seen the patient, talked to them and devised a plan, but for several weeks (please note: not months) their weight continues to go down or stabilizes at an unhealthy low number.

  • please refer them if the patient’s daytime heart rate is 50 BPM or below in the setting of weight loss and/or a known eating problem, you should be worried regardless of athletic training.

  • please refer them if you get a history of fainting in the setting of a child who has or may have eating issues.

  • please refer them if parents report a sudden, very large increase in exercise and a decrease in food intake.