A bit of a tricky one, this...

For so very long I claimed that my son was anything ranging from 95% to 99.99% recovered from the eating disorder that emerged in 2009, was treated between 2010 and 2012, and then self-managed from then onwards after discarding various private therapists. Or even that my son was / is "in remission".


The thing that was holding me back from saying 100% recovered was this insistence on counting calories every single day, opting for diet meals / products and a reluctance (but not refusal) to dine at restaurants which don't have an online calorie chart. Quite often he's gone for the salad option even if, on the positive side, that salad option usually appears to be quite weighty in calories.

I have challenged him about this several times and his response has always been that, by doing this, he can eat loads more food. In other words, he gets more food for the calories.

It's not that he's been cutting back on the calories; in fact he's put on weight. 5 kg at the last count.

He still has two breakfasts, lunch and dessert, evening meal and dessert plus snacking through the evening.

So he is eating enough.

But what he does appear to be doing is controlling that eating to ensure he doesn't eat "too much" for fear, presumably, of "getting fat".

It's a tricky one, this, because on the one hand you know he's getting enough food and eating healthily while on the other hand you know that he is controlling his intake.

This is why I've always felt nervous when claiming that my son is fully recovered from his eating disorder.

And, of course, none of this was helped by CAMHS permitting him to aim for a lower target weight because his interpretation of that is that it was the correct / healthy weight for him.