Every patient at CHEO in our eating disorder program gets family therapy. This means there is a therapist who is mostly with the parents, working very closely with them to educate them and to raise their anxiety about the severity of the illness in their child and the need for very intense intervention, and to try to empower them to take control over the child's nutrition and to not give opportunity for symptoms. Given that it's a combination of an obsessive-compulsive illness and an addiction where the patient is compelled to have symptoms, we really want to then have parents in charge of just not giving opportunity for symptoms.
As you suggested, though, first, it's a lot easier said than done, and second, not all families have the resources for whatever reason. The parents may have mental illness, or they may be single parents and may not be able to get off work or whatever. That's one of our problems. In the best circumstances maybe 70% will respond to FBT, and it may take over a year. But what do we do with the other 30%? We don't even have the research to tell us what to do with them.