Exercise for Anorexia Recovery
The last thing you’d think to suggest to someone with anorexia is to exercise. In fact, many eating disorder treatment programs don’t include exercise, since it can become one more thing a person obsessed with staying thin is likely to overdo. But a new study suggests that the right kind of activity can actually help.
Conducted at the Renfrew Center, a treatment facility for eating disorders in Philadelphia, the research followed 254 anorexic women for six months. Half got psychological counseling and engaged in a fitness program that included yoga, Pilates, strength training, and gentle aerobics such as jumping rope, wheelbarrow races, and whiffle ball; the other half participated in psychotherapy alone. By the end of the study, the women in the combo group had gained 40 percent more weight than those who got just talk therapy.
How did exercise help? “The program helps people learn to be physically active in a way that isn’t focused on changing their bodies or losing weight,” says Rachel Calogero, a research associate at the Renfrew Center and coauthor of the study. “I wish more treatment programs would incorporate this kind of training.”