What I really want to highlight is that we know that parents are actually the best resource for supporting their child. Parents are the ones who know their child best. Even parents who have their own mental health concerns, whether anxiety, depression, or their own eating disorder, can be the best support. In one of our evidence-based approaches.... Family-based treatments for eating disorders can be helpful regardless of what mental health concerns parents bring.
At the same time, we know that having a child with an eating disorder is very stressful. One of the factors that we talk about with families is the cliché that you need to put your own oxygen mask on in the plane before you can help a child. If a parent's mental health concerns are interfering with their own ability to function, of course this is going to have an impact on their ability to support their child with an eating disorder, and other children in the family as well. We know that siblings can also be impacted when there's an eating disorder in the house or when parents are not able to function well because of their mental health concerns.