This time of year can trigger a lot of emotions for people struggling with eating disorders.

As the semester winds down, things can get pretty overwhelming for those who deal with anxiety. The pressure of exams, finishing projects and gearing up for the holidays can be a lot to take on. This time can also be really overwhelming for those who struggle with eating disorders.

It’s important to get help from a specialized therapist which is why we reached out to Melissa Koch, MA, LPC to discuss Somatic Experiencing and how she uses this approach with her clients. We are thrilled to share her expertise with you! Read more below about how this approach can really help when dealing with eating disorders and anxiety.

Compassionate Counseling St. Louis specializes in anxiety management for kids, teens and college students.

We work with a ton of families. We love the work that we do! But we also know, even if we love working with you, that we’re not always the best fit.

If things aren’t feeling better, we want to check in with your weekly outcomes scores, to track our progress. We want to try out a few new interventions. And if we’re still not seeing the progress we want to see, we might refer you out.

Sometimes, anxiety and eating disorders go hand in hand.

Our anxiety leads to overwhelm, and many people try to deal with that overwhelm through their food. Eating disorders can range from bingeing to extreme restriction, and you want to be sure that you’re working with someone who truly understands the impact that the ED has on your brain, body, and behaviors.

When we work with anxiety, especially with our teens and college-aged students, we want to be sure that we are assessing for eating disorders - and if they are experiencing them, we want to connect them with a specialist who understands. That’s where Laura Bumberry at Partners in Wellness comes in.

We’re so excited to have interviewed Laura on today’s blog! Please read more about her expertise, and how she incorporates families into her work below.

We all know mental health and physical health go hand in hand.

They’re totally linked together. And on the mental health side, I see a wide range of how diet and eating can interact with child, adolescent, and young adult anxiety and anger management. Some kids come in with picky eating that’s anxiety driven. Some teens I work with find that controlling their food feels like a way to control their perfectionism - and, of course, it’s an unhealthy coping tool.

That’s why I’m so excited to have interviewed Shannon, a nutrition counselor here in St. Louis.

Shannon works with teens and adults to help them build healthier approaches to eating and diet and body image. She understands that anxiety and eating go hand in hand (which is why we recommend teens and adults with disordered eating meet with a nutritionist and a therapist at the same time!) And I love how passionate she is about teaching people how to make real, healthy choices in their lives.

Learn more about Shannon below!

What ages do you work with?

I work with adolescents to adults. I am very passionate about helping late adolescence/teenagers to feel good about their body and to teach them all the wisdom that it holds. Around 10 years old, there can be more questioning about body, even though this can happen earlier. It’s so important to set the stage early, on what it means to take care of your body in a way that isn’t diet language (ie don’t eat sugar, you shouldn’t have carbs, no junk food) and to teach kids to listen to their body when its hungry, when its full, when it doesn’t feel well after eating a certain food or amount of food. All of it is data that their body is giving them.

It is also helping the child feel good about their body, especially if they are in a larger body. We come in all shapes and sizes, even though we are told the only acceptable size is thin. With society and maybe the messages at home, a child in a larger body may feel that their body is not okay and is “wrong.” It is bringing it back to educating about the body during adolescence and the pubescent cycle and honoring their body by taking good care of it, instead of punishing it for what it must naturally do.