Recipe for Life.

APPETITE disorders; ANOREXIA nervosa; EATING disorders; BODY image; ANOREXIA in children; NUTRITION disorders in children; TEENAGE girls

The article profiles discusses a treatment program called the Maudsley method which is used to treat anorexia. Devised in the early 1980s by doctors at the Institute of Psychiatry and Maudsley Hospital in London, the family-based approach is just now making inroads in the States, where at least 170 young girls are being treated at Columbia, Stanford and the University of Chicago. Unlike traditional therapies, which tend to treat anorexia as a child's attempt to wrest control from overbearing parents, Maudsley places no blame for the illness. Instead, it coaches parents to help their kids gain weight by whatever means necessary--by preparing favorite foods, with 24-hour monitoring to prevent purging and hours of cajoling at the dinner table. With standard treatments--antidepressants, individual therapy and hospitalization--overall mortality rates for anorexia still hover at between 5 and 20 percent. Though statistics are limited, one 1997 study of 21 adolescent patients treated with the Maudsley method found that 90 percent were still fully recovered five years later. Still, even Maudsley's proponents acknowledge that the treatment isn't right for everyone.