March 20, 2024 • 38 mins
In this episode, host, Melissa Peruch, interviews Kevin Olmsted, a father who experienced an eating disorder through a caregiver's perspective. Kevin opens up about his story, reflects on his experience, touches on some of the myths about eating disorders, and shares what drove his book publication. Thank you so much for joining us!
Transcript Available for restrictED Episode 02 (link)
Guest: Kevin Olmsted
Phone Number: (415) 312-2393
Email: Kevin.olmsted@gmail.com
Website/Book: https://www.scareddadfeeding.com/
Eating Disorder Definitions:
Beat Eating Disorders: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/about-eating-disorders/types/
Healthline Nutrition: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/common-eating-disorders#other-types
Key Definitions:
Family and Medical Leave Act- the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 is a United States labor law requiring covered employers to provide employees with job-protected, unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons.
Family Based Treatment (FBT)- Family-Based Treatment, or FBT, is a type of psychological treatment to treat eating disorders. It is offered by therapists who are trained in the method and follow the FBT treatment manuals. FBT is a type of family therapy, where the patient and the family visit the therapist together. FBT differs from most family therapy approaches for eating disorders:
- FBT is “agnostic” about the cause of eating disorders, and does not try to find underlying issues or causes.
- Parents are asked to take over decisions about food for the first part of treatment.
- Siblings are included.
- Therapists coach parents in finding their own solutions to challenges during treatment.
- Food is medicine.
- There is a “family meal” session early in treatment where patients are asked to resist, and parents are coached on how to overcome resistance.
Orthosatic- a decrease in blood pressure that happens soon after standing or sitting up.
Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP)- PHP patients have individual therapy twice weekly and meet with their dieticians once weekly to establish a meal plan and discuss nutritional guidelines. They are also evaluated weekly, monitored medically, and complete lab work and other necessary testing by a nurse practitioner.
Residential Programs- residential treatment is conducted in a home-like environment. The patient will stay in a bedroom and share a living space with other program participants. The focus of a residential program is treating the psychological and emotional aspects of an eating disorder, but the patient will still have 24-hour access to medical staff to ensure they are provided the best care possible.
Resources for Support:
Books:
- "Life Without Ed" by Jenni Schaefer
- "Hunger for Life" by Andy Marr
- "Good Girls: A Story & Study of Anorexia" by Hadley Freeman
- “Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle With Anorexia” by Harriet Brown
- "Unrestrict-ED" (https://open.spotify.com/show/0XOxPP7kAWRC9CZLlH5U1m?si=12dff0b16f0a49d7")
- "The Eating Disorder Diaries" (
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kevin Olmsted (00:00):
It's so hard to figure out why your kid came to this.
(00:02):
And the ultimate answer is.
We can say it's genetic.
You can say it's hereditary.
You can say it was caused by social media.
There's a great expression thatsays heredity loads the gun,
environment pulls the trigger.
But no one's to blame.
It just happens.
And how you react to it is thefirst lesson you go through.
Melissa Peruch (00:26):
Hey everyone, welcome back to my program series restrictED
in collaboration with ConnectoPod.
In this episode, I interview KevinOlmsted, who brings in the perspective
of a father who confronted theunexpected realm of an eating disorder
and became a scared dad feeding.
Last episode, I spoke on my personaljourney with an eating disorder and
thought it was important to addresssome of the vernacular that will
(00:48):
circulate throughout this series,specifically terminology related
to different eating disorders.
Definitions can be found by HealthlineNutrition and Beat Eating Disorders, both
of which are linked in the description.
There exists a variety and spectrumof eating disorders that many are
overwhelmed to hear due to the vaguecirculation of knowledge around the topic.
Eating disorders are severe mentalillnesses that are complicated
(01:11):
on their own, but also oftentimessurface with other comorbidities
namely OCD, depression, anxiety,body dysmorphia and low self-esteem.
Ones listed in the websites below includeanorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge
eating disorder or BED, orthorexia,Pica, rumination disorder, and other
(01:33):
specified feeding or eating disorderor OSFED, which includes behavioral and
temporal eating disorders like purgingdisorder and night eating syndrome.
Kevin includes other terminologythroughout the interview that is
further defined in the description,along with his contact information.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Melissa (01:50):
Quick disclaimer, throughout this series we will touch on triggering
content, including discussions onweight, suicidal ideation, body
dysmorphia, dieting, and depression.
If at any point the content is harmingyour own journey toward recovery,
please feel free to skip ahead.
If you or anyone you know issuffering from mental health,
there will be a list of resourcesdown below in the description.
Melissa Peruch (02:17):
The first question I had for you today is, could
you tell us a little bit aboutwho you are and your relationship
encountering an eating disorder?
Just a brief summary ofyour experience as a parent.
Kevin Olmsted (02:27):
I'm Kevin and I was pretty much raised in Northern California.
About 32 years ago, I met a girlat Berkeley and she was being my
girlfriend for a while and nowshe's my wife 32 years later.
Pretty much other than livinga little bit in Europe.
Been a northern California guy most ofmy life, proud Cal alum, but anyways, so
my wife and I had our first kid in 2001.
We had a son and then wehad our daughter in 2004.
(02:50):
All the while my wife's been in technologyand I was always in the wine business.
And, while I was very intowine academically, I, I really
developed a career, uh, in sales.
And so, um, kind of balanced thebusiness and the art and the passion
of wine for many, many years.
And while my kids were growingup, you know, I had to travel a
lot, but I also was very involved.
I always, I call myself asideline junkie, whether they're
(03:12):
starting or the third string.
I just love to be there early Saturdaymornings to go to a soccer game and
go in and get coffee and a muffin.
And so you know, I feel very fortunate.
I feel very, very, very fortunate.
My wife and I, you know, we've beenable to make a nice life for our kids.
We live in Northern California and,um, probably now just about five years
ago, when our son was not struggling,but he was trying to get to the end
(03:33):
of high school and he had some ADHDissues and we're thinking, oh man,
this kid's going to be the hard one.
And we always looked at our daughterwho was always on autopilot because
she was a type A and she was a peoplepleaser and a rule follower and, um,
just got everything done and was astarter on the soccer and lacrosse team.
And she was just so fun.
And she was my best friend.
And just out of nowhere one day,this decline hit and she just,
(03:57):
started becoming, separated anddistant from us and really kind
of a little dark and not friendly.
And then out of nowhere, youstart noticing the physical
attributes of an eating disorder.
The weight loss, the gauntness, thelack of color, and then it all kind
of, you know, I talk a lot in metaphorsand analogies, but she really almost
became this like, this villain, thisdark, just it wasn't her anymore.
(04:20):
And when you kind of slow walk intoit, you have no idea what's going on.
And there's none of these like, hey,heads up, eating disorder ahead.
It hits you so graduallyyou don't understand.
And before I knew it, my daughter wasdown about 30 pounds over 60 days and
acting reclusive, acting evil, avoidingmeals, avoiding us, being secretive.
And it's easy to talk about inretrospect five years later, but at
(04:43):
the time you're just so confused,you have no idea what's going on.
Melissa Peruch (04:47):
Yeah.
And so with that, I wanted to ask as aparent, what was your initial reaction to
hearing the diagnosis anorexia nervosa?
You, I've talked to you before andyou mentioned that your daughter
suffered with anorexia nervosa.
And I also want to ask you, howdid this diagnosis come about?
When did you figure out that this wasthe actual name for her eating disorder?
(05:10):
What kinds of emotionscame to you at that moment?
And did you ever feel the needto blame anyone at the situation?
Kevin Olmsted (05:17):
So, as I was saying, you're so confused about this lack of eating.
In early summer generally is when you haveto get signed off on for fall sports in
high school and she's not eating and she'sgoing through all of this, just rebelling.
And acting out and all I can putit in context of is like, I just
gotta get her to the doctor.
There's something wrong here.
Oh, hey, under the guise of you gottaget signed off for fall sports, I'm
(05:38):
gonna get you an early check up in June.
That's gonna solve this.
And unfortunately, the first doctorwe went to, uh, this physician,
didn't understand eating disorders.
And so all this physician did wasrefer us to a dietitian, which still,
until somebody tells you eatingdisorder, until somebody sits you down
and sits you in the face with a fryingpan and says, wake, up you're just
(06:00):
kind of confused and thinking, well,she's going through something, there's
something wrong, she's just acting out.
And there's so much confusion throughJune and July, and it wasn't until,
kind of mid to late July of fiveyears ago, that, this dietician said
you should go see this psychologistfor like, okay, maybe that'll help.
And we went into the first appointmentwith a psychologist one night on a Friday.
And this psychologist tookone look at my daughter.
(06:22):
And just alarm bellswere ringing in her head.
And she said, I'm getting you in tosee this physician tomorrow morning.
We said, oh, we've heard of her.
We have an appointment in two months.
And this psychologist said, nope,you're going tomorrow morning at eight.
And somehow she got us in.
We got to this physician's office.
Our daughter was taken away from us.
And we're sitting there and we don'tknow how or why this is going to be
(06:42):
different than any other physicianand we're not thinking eating
disorder because nobody ever told us.
It wasn't part of our vernacular,but it was like kind of getting
promoted to the big leagues.
Um, the doctor came out and got my wifeand I after half an hour and took us into
a room and just and right then and thereis when it all just came broad clear.
She said, your daughter'svastly underweight.
(07:03):
She's medically unstable.
Her life is at risk right now.
Her weight is, incredibly low.
Her heart rate is on the vergeof us cracking her chest.
And she starts talking aboutblood pressure and things like
orthostasia and malnourishment.
And I think what it is, is not that you'rein denial, but maybe in the back of my
head it's all been processing, processing,processing, and then she finally just
(07:24):
said it all, and it came slamming throughto the front, and it's, I mean, I'm an
educated guy, I've been around the worlda lot, it's not like I've never heard
of anorexia, but that was a distantthing that I never really knew about.
But, to be fair, until you know somebodywith anorexia, or a drinking problem,
or cancer, it's always somethingover there, and it's not yours.
Yeah.
And when that doctor said, bythe way, I just called Stanford,
(07:47):
they have a room available.
You're taking her there today.
From that moment of the discussionthat our daughter walks into the
room when she sat between my wifeand I and looked at that doctor,
she had a look on her face andshe didn't fight, she didn't
argue, she didn't say anything.
I think she just knew that this wasthe dawning, this was the reckoning.
And this is where it's going to start,or maybe it's no longer going to end.
(08:09):
And when the doctor said, you haveanorexia nervosa, you need to be
re nourished, you need to go to thehospital, your life does not start
until you do all these things right now.
There was no fight.
We drove to our house, wepacked up, we didn't know.
We just packed up some clothing andsweats and blankets and whatever.
Got in the car and Stanford's aboutan hour from us and the whole time.
(08:30):
And then it's kind of, you're in afog and it's kind of like a dream.
But I think the whole time, maybeI'm feeling more confident and happy.
Like, wait, there's a name to this.
Somebody at least told us what it is.
And we got to the hospital,we go to the fourth floor.
And it's almost like we'rechecking into a hotel and we
got bags and where are we going?
And they immediately grabbed her, tookher to the room, IV, heart monitor,
(08:52):
sitting, and they started doingintake like we knew what was going on.
And during this intake is when it hit me.
I'm like, Oh shit, this is real.
Like, this is a thing.
Like, this isn't like, Oh, she'sgot the flu or she's got COVID.
Like she's got a serious mentaldisorder and she could have died a
week or two if we hadn't done anything.
And I don't think my wife andI ever got around to blaming or
(09:12):
being angry or being resentful.
We're very much the kind of peoplethat are like, okay, accept, solve
the problem and move forward.
And I, I can still remember, on thefourth floor at Stanford hospital,
when she's sitting in a bed and theyhave a nurse in there and they bring
in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
And the nurse is like, Ineed to be here for this.
I'm like, be here for what?
She's like the first snack.
(09:33):
I'm like, what do you mean?
And my daughter was shaking and cryingwhile she put that peanut butter
and jelly sandwich to her mouth.
I think it took her half an hour.
And that's really when it hit us.
Melissa Peruch (09:44):
Yeah.
That's rough.
I think experiencing that from anoutside perspective and watching
those types of images play out.
I think it's rough.
Um, but I think like you said, I findit interesting that I guess having a
diagnosis and having a name to it isin a way somewhat comforting in the
fact that you at least know that it issomething and there is a name to it.
(10:08):
and there is viable treatment optionsand ways for this to play out so
that it doesn't end someone's life.
And so the next question I wanted toask is, Experiencing this disorder
the way that you did from an outsideperspective, what do you think is
the hardest part about developingand or conquering an eating disorder?
Kevin Olmsted (10:29):
Oh, I've talked about this for years and years.
I'm very involved with a lot ofparent groups, not only for mutual
support, um, I'm involved with alot of caregiver support groups.
I've found dozens and dozens anddozens of families and parents and
fathers that come to me for advice.
I say all that to then say this answer.
It's so hard to figure outwhy your kid came to this.
(10:50):
And the ultimate answer is.
We can say it's genetic.
You can say it's hereditary.
You can say it was caused by social media.
There's a great expression thatsays heredity loads the gun,
environment pulls the trigger.
But no one's to blame.
It just happens.
And how you react to it is thefirst lesson you go through.
(11:11):
You can treat it, butyou can't control it.
All you can control ishow you react to it.
And how you stay engaged with it, and howmuch you're willing to learn and spend
the time and lean in and never give up.
Unfortunately, as opposed to say, andI don't mean to make light of something
that's deadly, say breast cancer.
(11:31):
If the National Football League hasan annual Breast Cancer Awareness
Week where they all wear pink cleats,you have to think that they, there's
an enormous regimen of research,treatment options, facilities,
and doctors ready to tackle that.
Anorexia is one of the few disordersout there that there is no pill,
there's no cast, there's nomethodology that works stone cold.
(11:53):
It's still very unfiguredout, if you will.
even having this conversationshows we're all still finding
our way forward in the dark.
Melissa Peruch (12:02):
Yeah.
And with your work that you do with somany parents and families, and, I know
you've talked on different podcastsbefore, have you seen like general
trends within families, or things thatthey're trying to do that maybe might
not be the most helpful in the situation?
Kevin Olmsted (12:22):
So, whether I've seen the trends or maybe I've just been
around long enough that I finallyhave a 40, 000 foot view, I'd say the
following are pretty much dead on true.
If you are medically at risk, um, andyou need whatever refers to as a higher
level of care, initially you've got togo to a hospital or you need to live in
an inpatient facility that essentiallyforces you to eat to get you medically
(12:46):
stabilized to get you refed to the pointwhere your heart is no longer at risk.
So, while people hateresidential, my daughter was
in residential for two months.
And it was awful.
To this day, I think back of the day Idropped her off on that and it chokes
me up and it kills me to think about.
We've also rehospitalized her twicesince residential, but so the basic
trend is nothing matters if your kidshealth is at risk, even if you're
(13:09):
getting an academy award this afternoon.
I don't care.
You take your kid to the hospital.
You take your kid to res.
Beyond that.
I think there's been a much broaderunderstanding and acceptance
of FBT, family based treatment.
Where you're treating it at home, um,with parents who are on board 24 hours
a day, seven days a week, as opposed totry to rely on an outpatient program.
(13:30):
A lot of people try outpatientprograms, they try virtual programs,
but those are easy to ignore or skip.
If you're doing it at home, whetherwith two parents, one parent, an
aunt, a foster parent, FBT is stillprobably the most effective model.
Having said that, there's noweven more growth in the FBT model.
You're finding residential facilitiesthat are saying, a kid will live with
(13:52):
us full time, but then the parents willcome all day and will train in FBT.
UC San Diego has an amazing 10 houra day outpatient program that teaches
FBT while the kids are there being fed,yet the parents come and learn FBT.
The eating recovery center inDenver is a full time residential
step down to PHP, but they comeand train the parents in FBT.
(14:13):
Kind of maybe then lookingforward, um, on your trend thing.
I think there's a couple of things comingdown is one of them is across all mental
disorders is the use of psychedelics andwhile they're talking about psilocybin
and MDMA with people with PTSD andbipolar, there's already research being
done at UCSF and UCSD to use those forkids with eating disorders, specifically
(14:36):
anorexia and the best metaphor is ifyou're skiing in the snow and you always
ski through the same ruts, you never getout of those ruts and get into powder.
Sessions with a trained, group withpsychedelics can allow somebody with
an eating disorder to get out of thoseruts and ski in new directions and drop
those old behaviors, beliefs and habitsand then a really, really nascent but
(14:58):
emerging trend that I'm seeing, is theconcept of a mentor, a trusted ally
who can guide somebody through this.
There's a very small industry outthere, but it's incredibly effective
where you will have a live in eatingdisorder coach come to your home.
This usually is somebody whohas recovered on their own and
gone through years of training.
(15:18):
And experience and they walk into yourhouse and it could be for a month,
two months, six months, and they livefull time with you as a family, but
they are that person that your childturns to who's not a doctor, not a
psychologist, not there to treat thatkid who's there to say, look, I'm kind
of your full time live in life coach.
And there, there forms an alliance and atrust and a bond between a child and this
(15:42):
live in coach that has nothing to do withoh, I have to go to another f'ing doctor.
So, that's kind of a trend that I seekind of maybe coming down the line in the
next 5 to 10 years, but it does exist now.
Melissa Peruch (15:54):
By the looks of it, you have a very vast knowledge about
treatment options and resources thatare out there and I wanted to ask if
you could touch a little bit more onresidency and inpatient versus FBT and
what those treatments are like, and,maybe pros and cons that you've personally
seen from your personal experience.
Kevin Olmsted (16:15):
So, uh, again, I think early on, if you're,
if you're a caregiver, I don'twant to just assume parents.
If you're a caregiver for a person withan eating disorder, and this hits you
first on, you're absolutely overwhelmed.
You're emotionally and you'reeducationally just so overwhelmed,
you have no idea what to do.
Not to mention then they tellyou there's no pill for this.
There's no thing.
(16:37):
And sometimes the initial fear.
Is well, who's gonna help me solve this?
How do I outsource it?
Where do I go hire the guy?
Where's the place that I buy the thing?
And so what's nice about aresidential facility is residential
you usually have to qualify.
You have to be a certain BMIheight, weight and heart issues.
Um, you can be toohealthy for residential.
(16:57):
But um, so in one sense,you're outsourcing it.
You're saying I want my child togo live somewhere full time where
they're surrounded by experts whocan then train me, but I don't have
to live with it and not to say thatyou don't love or you don't care.
It is incredibly scary.
You have no idea whatthe hell is going on.
So residential is a way of outsourcing,but it's also a way to build a base.
(17:19):
And I mean this truly.
Any kid who has gone and lived in ares for any amount of time, no matter
how long they're treated, at leastthey kind of went to boot camp too.
They understand like, you know, I gotto eat full time, six meals a day.
I have to have my movement restricted.
I have to have my actions looked at.
I have to be accountable.
They learn the ropes as a patient asmuch as the parents learn the ropes as a
(17:39):
caregiver on what it takes to treat this.
Plus they get a lot ofeducation about what it means.
The step down from res.
It's partial hospitalization or PHP.
It's a daily outpatient or maybeyou drop the caregiver drops the kid
off, does breakfast at home, but getsdropped off for morning snack at 10.
And then you pick them back up at seven.
During that program, it's a littlemore learning and interactive.
(18:01):
They kind of help make their ownlunch, plan their own snacks,
make their own dinners, help tomake it in a group setting with
lots of therapy group sessions.
And as a side note, you canimagine a bunch of bitter teenage
kids with an eating disorder.
The last thing they want to do issit around with a bunch of other kids
who have eating disorders and roleplay and talk about their problems.
So I would take res and PHP and thenthere's a very small subset called IOP.
(18:24):
Which is maybe only three hours a day.
Let's say you're like90 percent recovered.
You just need a littletouchstone every day.
I just need to go in after workor school for three hours and have
somebody walk me through my dinner justto make myself feel like I got this.
So that in all sense is almostkind of the early stages or if you
feel like you can't handle and youneed to outsource this to somebody.
Um, quite often the gold standard,FBT, family based treatment.
(18:47):
No matter whether you're an alcoholic ora druggie or whatever, you can go from
facility to facility, facility to group togroup to group, and at some point, you've
got to come home and live your life.
Anybody with any kind of mental disorder,you can't treat it until the end.
At some point, patient has to embrace,understand, and acknowledge, and
treat themselves, and walk awayor find a way to deal with it.
(19:08):
Family based treatment, there'snobody there who works for a living.
It's not a nurse that's going home.
It's not a new physician every month.
It's your mom and dad.
It's your step parents.
It's your older brother.
Somebody who loves you 24/ 7and is going to be there, and
the whole time you're at home.
By the way, at res, they take away yourphone, you can't be on snapchat and
tiktok, you can't be on instagram, soat least at home, you get your own bed,
you get your phone, maybe you see yourfriends during the day, talk to the dog,
(19:30):
watch tv with mom and dad at night, Youalso fight and have the greatest amount
of battles with the people who loveyou the most during FBT, so while it's
generally the most effective, it doesbring up an incredible amount of conflict.
But then that's where so muchof the caregiver support network
that's developed the last few yearsis there to train the caregivers.
There is a dichotomy betweenresident PHP and FBT.
(19:52):
I also would see it as a continuum.
And then in the middle in there,if somebody relapses, they can go
off to a hospitalization, but thatwould be how I explain those two.
Melissa Peruch (20:02):
Yeah.
That's some great information.
And I know there's like so manypeople that probably don't even
know that these types of treatmentoptions or facilities even exist.
What you said about the breast cancerawareness month and how there's
certain awareness built around certaindiseases and certain knowledge that's
(20:23):
built around these types of diseases.
I wanted to talk about how there's suchvague knowledge about eating disorders,
which is what you mentioned earlier.
Why do you think that is and why do youfeel it has been treated like taboo to
talk about in a more general public lens?
Kevin Olmsted (20:39):
It's kind of a $64,000 question, honestly.
It's really just never hadits 15 minutes of fame.
I believe there's so muchshame and secrecy around it.
So much embarrassment and a senseof control that either people are
embarrassed to talk about it, theydon't understand it, or nobody's
going to know that my goddamn kid'sgot a problem, you know, that, that
attitude and because it's misunderstoodand they don't know the treatments.
(21:02):
A lot of parents are like,honey, you'll be fine.
Just eat more or yeah, you look skinny.
You look fine.
Um, and so that culture has beenswirling for all of humanity and
because it's so quiet and misunderstood,no attention is paid to it.
So therefore, it remainsquite misunderstood.
And so therefore, fake factsand fake knowledge show up.
It's a girl only disease.
(21:22):
It's a skinny girl disease.
It's a rich girl disease.
It's, you know, cause who do you see?
You see models.
You see famous people on TMZ.
Nobody looks at the real life eatingdisorder kids in every community
in America, every gender, everygender identity, boys as well.
What's happening right now,there's a upwelling finally, at
(21:43):
least in my experience in the lastfive years of the shame and the
secrecy starting to melt away.
And the more people that are out loudand proud, the more people who host a
podcast and talk about themselves andthe more people who write books or the
more people who join groups and talkto their friends and neighbors, it has
to start as kind of at the groundswelland it's going to go up more and more.
(22:07):
Even the, even the men's group I'ma part of, I'm a part of a group
of fathers that get together everytwo weeks from around the world.
And those are dads whoare like, I'm in trouble.
I'm upset.
I'm naive.
I'm vulnerable.
I'm going to cry.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
Can somebody please help me?
That attitude didn't exist 5 to 10 yearsago in the eating disorder community.
And the more that I bring dadsto it or dads bring me or dads
bring other dads, then it becomesokay for dads to talk about this.
(22:29):
And it's no longer just a littlegirl disease or a mom's talking
about when they were younger disease.
Melissa Peruch (22:33):
Yeah.
And I agree with a lotof things that you said.
And you did talk about like someof the stereotypes and biases that
come up when talking about eatingdisorders, which leads into my
next question about stereotypes.
Some of the ones that I hear mostoften are the ones that you mentioned,
like it's a girl disease, but alsothat it's a self inflicted disease.
(22:54):
So could you touch a little more on thesestereotypes that you have encountered and
give your insight on what eating disorderstruly are and what they aren't to debunk
some of the things that are being said.
Kevin Olmsted (23:07):
So a lot of the stereotypes, um, I just wanted
to be skinnier, so I ate less.
Um, I'm not really that sick.
I'm vain.
Um, I'm doing this to keepup with everybody else.
The other stereotype isthat you have to be skinny.
Atypical anorexia is a very real thing.
You could, you and I couldlook at a tremendous lineup of
(23:27):
men and women, girls and boys.
And I'll tell you the worst stereotypeis the following expression.
You don't look anorexic.
Everybody thinks you haveto look anorexic, right?
Anorexia is an eating disorder.
If you are starving yourself, If you areharming your body through the restriction
of food or the manipulation of food, evenif it may not affect your appearance,
you're not only very sick mentally,but you're compromised medically.
(23:50):
Your heart rate can still be awful.
You can be orthostatic.
You can be on the verge ofneeding hospitalization.
So maybe the very first stereotype is youdon't have to look like you have an eating
disorder to have an eating disorder.
Eating disorders are mental disorders andthey can germinate in a couple of ways.
They can germinate as, let'sjust say, you physically start
to overexercise and eat to diet.
(24:12):
And as you diet and eat less and exercisemore and you become malnourished, you
get a little kind of, euphoric andunfortunately, you can kind of maybe
turn the dial too far to get stuckand the euphoria creates a mental
state that reinforces the activity.
Um, then you can also have it startpsychologically where usually through
puberty, let's just say that a youngboy or girl goes through puberty and
(24:34):
starts to have ideas that they neverhad before and thoughts that they
never had before and then they turnthose thoughts and ideas into actions
and then those actions become habits.
And then those habits reinforce whatgerminated normally as psychological.
So you can have it start psychologically,manifest physically, you can start it
physically and manifest sociologically.
It's not to blame, nobody shamed theminto it, um, nobody beat them into it.
(24:58):
I mean, other than somebody who'sa prisoner of war, nobody is
forced into an eating disorder.
So those would be thekind of the stereotypes.
And so that kinda leads into whatyou're asking, what they truly
are and what they truly are not.
They are a mental disorder and soyou do have to treat them as such.
There will take years and years ofa lot of understanding and a lot
(25:18):
of therapy, but it is a long roadand usually you will have way more
success receiving therapy or um, orunderstanding yourself once you're weight
is restored, you have a higher level ofnutrition for a longer period of time.
Your brain suffers if it doesn'thave carbs and fat every day.
(25:39):
Your body can't process certain vitaminsand minerals without fat every day.
You need to be re nourished forprobably six to nine months until
your whole body is, it's almostlike a big data center or computer.
It's all got to come back online.
All the lights have to be flashing green.
Everything's got to be working together.
And at that point, that's when theyears of therapy start and you can
go through years of therapy and behealthy and be, um, you can be medically
(26:02):
stable, but you're still workingthrough your beliefs, your behaviors,
your habits and your issues with food.
What are they not?
It's not a choice.
It's not a lifestyle.
It's nothing that anybody wants and it'snothing that anybody should be ashamed of.
Melissa Peruch (26:18):
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
You wrote a book about your experiencetitled, "Scared Dad Feeding," and it's
on your website, which is going to belinked in the description of this episode.
So, I wanted to ask what does thattitle mean to you and focusing on
that parental lens, were there everany moments where you felt you could
have treated the situation better?
Kevin Olmsted (26:40):
I've always kept a diary on my computer.
I probably have the last 10 years.
I was a lit major in college, butit doesn't really mean anything.
I went into selling wine for a week.
Um, I like writing.
Always liked writing.
Writing makes me happy.
It's cathartic for me.
It helps me work through processes.
So as I was going through this withmy daughter, I started journaling
as a way to keep my sanity.
(27:01):
And then the journaling became alittle more, um, purpose driven.
And even I told my daughter aboutit, and she very early on said, you
should write a book about all this.
And so the entire book waswritten very much in the moments
in the first year and a half
It's like I wrote it from thefront lines while it was happening.
And to this day, I stand bya thousand percent of it.
(27:24):
I've evolved my thinking on some of it.
I've come to learn that Iwas wrong on some of it.
But it's out there to say,this is what it's like.
Now, specifically to the title, it'sprobably the most, overt and in your face
and yet, nuanced homage to Harriet Brown.
She wrote a book 14 yearsago called Brave Girl Eating.
And while I never meant to mimic it, Ican remember one night sitting in the
(27:47):
backyard, and I just remember saying,if she's a brave girl eating, I'm a
scared dad feeding, because that wasmy entire identity, was I was just
paranoid all the time, I was scared, Iwas crying, I was a mess, and all I did
was feed this girl six times a day, Ihad no job, I stayed at home with a 14
year old girl my entire life was that.
God, the moments I could have been better.
Again, losing my cool, um, tryingto use logic with my daughter, or
(28:13):
trying to get mad at her for beingsick, because you just lose it.
You know, you get to the end of yourrope, you just get so tired, or you don't
understand, or you're not educated enough,or maybe you've just been through it for
too many days at a time, where I screamedat her once, I said, you know, I quit my
job, I quit my career, I quit life, I quithumanity, so I could stay home with you.
(28:35):
And I remember saying that to her onceon the way to the doctor and you know,
there were just times when I wasn't mybest because you just get so worn down.
I also wish I wouldn't have had to dropher off at res or I wish I wouldn't have
had to drop her off at the hospital alot of the times because I would drop
her off and walk out and cry because youdon't want to do that to a little girl.
Melissa Peruch (28:53):
Yeah, I think it's very difficult for both parties.
I just think compiled from azoomed out version, it's just
a very unfortunate situation.
And I think it's just easy toget boiled up inside as a parent.
You're trying so hard to getthis person to wake up and
notice the reality of things.
And it's just so hard forthe other person to do it.
(29:16):
But I think no one is to blamein a situation where you are left
to fight together, but there's solittle knowledge to bridge that gap.
But as a parent, I wanted to ask for allthe parents out there that are listening
to this podcast right now, or peoplethat are guardians or have family members
(29:37):
that they know are suffering with aneating disorder, could you offer some
words of wisdom of things they shouldconsider doing or actions or comments
that would be harmful to recovery?
Like some basic maybe do's ordon'ts that could be helpful?
Kevin Olmsted (29:54):
The first thing I say to any parent is step one, what's
the state of your child's health?
Are they medically compromised right now?
Regardless of what treatment you thinkyou're going through or helping them,
is their heart rate, is their bloodpressure stable and in a safe range?
Are they orthostatic?
Check the blood work, um, tomake sure they're not purging.
You can see the lack ofelectrolytes in that.
(30:17):
For young women, what's their iron level?
Let's make sure they don'tbecome iron deficient.
For young women, you want to do somethingcalled a DEXA scan because you can
lose bone density and osteoporosisis an incredibly high risk in women.
Again, I know this is very female focused.
Has your daughter lost her menses?
Um, do you see additional hair growthon their body because they have so
low fat, the bodies is too cold.
(30:38):
My point is step one, isyour child medically at risk?
And if your child is medically at risk.
Get them to a hospital, getthem to a residential program.
And now the first step is to make surethey live, make sure they do not starve
themselves to death, make sure thatthey are not so overwhelmed that they
commit suicide because there is a lotof self harming and eating disorders,
specifically anorexia have the highestmortality rate of any mental disorder
(31:01):
ever diagnosed because they eitherstarve themselves to death or they're
overwhelmed and they kill themselves.
Number two, find community, reachout, ask questions, get educated.
Don't try to do it on your own.
Find an eating disorder physician,find an eating disorder program at a
hospital and start asking everybodythere, who are my local resources?
My next piece of advice is youhave to think about treating
(31:22):
this as a treatment team.
You need a physician whounderstands eating disorders.
You need a psychologist whois fluent in not only eating
disorders but hopefully FBT.
You need a psychiatrist, andthis is not up for debate, but I
understand where this is going to go.
Medication can play a huge role inhelping somebody with an eating disorder.
There's a lot of medications thatcan lower the anxiety, that can, that
(31:46):
can lower the barriers to allowing achild to eat and eating is medicine.
And we can all debate medicationsand vaccinations and that's fine.
But get a psychiatrist involved.
Get a registered dietitian involved.
It's very easy for people tocall themselves a nutritionist.
A registered dietitian is somebodyyou want to have involved.
They can help you meal plan andunderstand density of fats and proteins.
(32:07):
And maybe at the end you can alsofind maybe a mentor, maybe a coach.
Um, the things you don't reallydon't want to do is Don't fall
victim to the stereotypes.
If you don't see it, it didn't happen.
You have to inspect what you expect.
Don't say, oh, he ate lunch at school.
No, he didn't.
He had lunch in his room.
No, he didn't.
If you didn't see it, it didn't happen.
(32:28):
If your kid's over 18, you needto get releases of information.
If they're under 18, you need to getthe report from the doctor every time
they go in or you go in with them.
You can't be angry at your kid.
You can't blame your kid.
You cannot blame yourself.
You cannot blame yourself.
It sucks.
And you're all in it together.
But just know that there is aworld out there of treatment
(32:49):
of people of communities andprocesses that can help you.
If you, as a caregiver are so overwhelmed,you can't help your kid, go for a walk,
take a day off and have somebody help you.
Treating this disease is incrediblyexpensive and resource intensive.
Um, you need insurance, you need timeoff, um, drugs cost a lot of money and
(33:10):
a small piece of advice I give people isthere's the Federal Medical Leave Act.
Where you can get eight to 12 weeksoff paid, um, where you can stay
home with your child, that's a greatoption for parents who are working.
Melissa Peruch (33:21):
Yeah.
And I think people will find that helpful.
I think it's very important thatpeople are aware of the actions
that they can take and some of thethings that won't be as helpful.
My final question is, finally asa dad, but also as a human being,
what is your advice to thosestruggling with an eating disorder?
What do you want listeners to takeaway, and what do you want them to know?
Kevin Olmsted (33:45):
If you're struggling with an eating disorder, it's not your fault.
You need to find a reason that you wantto get away from that eating disorder.
It's so comfortable and it'sa safe identity for you.
You go back to it becauseit's what you know.
It's what you think makes you special.
Know that you're special for alot of other reasons and your body
is worth respecting and honoring.
(34:07):
And you want to fuel that body andgrow old and live a long, long life.
90 percent of socializing in thisworld is going out to dinner,
going to your friend's house,going to the farmer's market.
You can be a functioning drugaddict or a functioning alcoholic
and kind of get by in life.
You cannot be a functioningstarve yourself person.
Find a reason to love yourself.
For anybody who's listening tothis, I self published a book
(34:28):
with my name on it and I put mywebsite in the back for a reason.
If you have a question, I'm not sayingI can, I can cure your problems.
I'm not saying I'm going to solveand help you heal your child.
But if you have questions, give me a call.
Um, I'm just happy to payit forward or pay it back.
And give advice and givedirection to anybody.
The last thing I'll say is, uh, asawful as this has been, I like the
(34:48):
person who I am five years later.
It's not that I didn't like who I was fiveyears before, but obviously I'm changed.
I like who I've become andI like the people I surround
myself with and I like what I do.
So anybody has any questions, you'llprobably put my contact info up there.
I'm happy to help.
Melissa Peruch (35:03):
Yeah, perfect.
And just some closing remarks, ifyou could share an update about
where your daughter is right now andwhere your family currently stands.
Kevin Olmsted (35:10):
So most of the book was written in 2020, flash forward to 2024.
Um, she graduated high school in 2022 inan absolute tailspin, complete spiral.
I mean, she went into a relapseand this, we barely got her across
the graduation stage in 2022.
Uh, we had to move to San Diego formost about four and a half months in
the summer of 2022 for the UC San Diegooutpatient program just to stabilize
(35:32):
her, um, and getting her on that planewas an act of Congress, but we got her
stabilized in through the fall of 2022.
And then we were able to find, comeacross a new treatment team and,
we were able to find a peer mentor.
We were able to find a dietitian thatshe resonated with and she trusted.
While at the same time we were keepingher out of college and she knew that
(35:53):
we were keeping her home from college.
And I think she realized that it was real.
Her friends were gone.
She was still struggling.
And all we were doingwas trying to love her.
And so through the fall of 2022 and thenthrough the spring of 2023, she found the
strength with this new treatment team.
And last year in the fall of2023, we sent her off to college.
(36:16):
And as you and I are recording here today,she's already called me three times.
Um, she's eight weeks away from cominghome from her freshman year in college.
Her vitals are stable.
Her weight is stable.
Her blood is stable.
She admits to me that she still struggleswith the thinking and the behaviors and
all the habits, but she kept herselfstable and she walked the walk on her
own and she's, she's proud of herselfand she misses us and we're not the
(36:40):
awful, horrible people that she told usabout years ago and she wants to look
forward to coming home this summer.
Melissa Peruch (36:45):
That's amazing.
Well, I just wanted toclose it off by saying.
I'm proud of where your daughter has come.
I know going through an eating disorder.
It's really hard.
And I think one of the things that youyearn most for is hearing those words.
I'm proud of you.
Um, I know that's the phrasethat I yearned for for a long
(37:05):
time throughout my journey.
Um, so I just wanted to say, I'mreally proud of your daughter
for where she has come, but I'malso really proud of you guys.
For sticking with her and for being withher and for learning so much and now for
helping so many people after that I thinkit takes a lot of guts, and a lot of
strength to actually do that and immerseyourself in this world where you once had
(37:27):
struggled for so long to actually helppull other people out of the quicksand.
I'm proud that I have met you and I'mpretty sure the listeners at home are
going to be proud at hearing this story.
And well, I thank you so muchfor your time, and I didn't
have any more questions.
Kevin Olmsted (37:46):
Thank you for having me.
This was amazing.
Thank you.
Melissa Peruch (37:54):
We hope you enjoyed this episode and stick around
to hear what other individualshave to share in future ones.
You can listen to Connectopod on Podbean,Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get
your podcasts, and visit connectopod.
net to see all of whatwe do and have in store.
Thank you for listening!
It's so hard to figure out why your kid came to this.
(00:02):
And the ultimate answer is.
We can say it's genetic.
You can say it's hereditary.
You can say it was caused by social media.
There's a great expression thatsays heredity loads the gun,
environment pulls the trigger.
But no one's to blame.
It just happens.
And how you react to it is thefirst lesson you go through.
Melissa Peruch (00:26):
Hey everyone, welcome back to my program series restrictED
in collaboration with ConnectoPod.
In this episode, I interview KevinOlmsted, who brings in the perspective
of a father who confronted theunexpected realm of an eating disorder
and became a scared dad feeding.
Last episode, I spoke on my personaljourney with an eating disorder and
thought it was important to addresssome of the vernacular that will
(00:48):
circulate throughout this series,specifically terminology related
to different eating disorders.
Definitions can be found by HealthlineNutrition and Beat Eating Disorders, both
of which are linked in the description.
There exists a variety and spectrumof eating disorders that many are
overwhelmed to hear due to the vaguecirculation of knowledge around the topic.
Eating disorders are severe mentalillnesses that are complicated
(01:11):
on their own, but also oftentimessurface with other comorbidities
namely OCD, depression, anxiety,body dysmorphia and low self-esteem.
Ones listed in the websites below includeanorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge
eating disorder or BED, orthorexia,Pica, rumination disorder, and other
(01:33):
specified feeding or eating disorderor OSFED, which includes behavioral and
temporal eating disorders like purgingdisorder and night eating syndrome.
Kevin includes other terminologythroughout the interview that is
further defined in the description,along with his contact information.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Melissa (01:50):
Quick disclaimer, throughout this series we will touch on triggering
content, including discussions onweight, suicidal ideation, body
dysmorphia, dieting, and depression.
If at any point the content is harmingyour own journey toward recovery,
please feel free to skip ahead.
If you or anyone you know issuffering from mental health,
there will be a list of resourcesdown below in the description.
Melissa Peruch (02:17):
The first question I had for you today is, could
you tell us a little bit aboutwho you are and your relationship
encountering an eating disorder?
Just a brief summary ofyour experience as a parent.
Kevin Olmsted (02:27):
I'm Kevin and I was pretty much raised in Northern California.
About 32 years ago, I met a girlat Berkeley and she was being my
girlfriend for a while and nowshe's my wife 32 years later.
Pretty much other than livinga little bit in Europe.
Been a northern California guy most ofmy life, proud Cal alum, but anyways, so
my wife and I had our first kid in 2001.
We had a son and then wehad our daughter in 2004.
(02:50):
All the while my wife's been in technologyand I was always in the wine business.
And, while I was very intowine academically, I, I really
developed a career, uh, in sales.
And so, um, kind of balanced thebusiness and the art and the passion
of wine for many, many years.
And while my kids were growingup, you know, I had to travel a
lot, but I also was very involved.
I always, I call myself asideline junkie, whether they're
(03:12):
starting or the third string.
I just love to be there early Saturdaymornings to go to a soccer game and
go in and get coffee and a muffin.
And so you know, I feel very fortunate.
I feel very, very, very fortunate.
My wife and I, you know, we've beenable to make a nice life for our kids.
We live in Northern California and,um, probably now just about five years
ago, when our son was not struggling,but he was trying to get to the end
(03:33):
of high school and he had some ADHDissues and we're thinking, oh man,
this kid's going to be the hard one.
And we always looked at our daughterwho was always on autopilot because
she was a type A and she was a peoplepleaser and a rule follower and, um,
just got everything done and was astarter on the soccer and lacrosse team.
And she was just so fun.
And she was my best friend.
And just out of nowhere one day,this decline hit and she just,
(03:57):
started becoming, separated anddistant from us and really kind
of a little dark and not friendly.
And then out of nowhere, youstart noticing the physical
attributes of an eating disorder.
The weight loss, the gauntness, thelack of color, and then it all kind
of, you know, I talk a lot in metaphorsand analogies, but she really almost
became this like, this villain, thisdark, just it wasn't her anymore.
(04:20):
And when you kind of slow walk intoit, you have no idea what's going on.
And there's none of these like, hey,heads up, eating disorder ahead.
It hits you so graduallyyou don't understand.
And before I knew it, my daughter wasdown about 30 pounds over 60 days and
acting reclusive, acting evil, avoidingmeals, avoiding us, being secretive.
And it's easy to talk about inretrospect five years later, but at
(04:43):
the time you're just so confused,you have no idea what's going on.
Melissa Peruch (04:47):
Yeah.
And so with that, I wanted to ask as aparent, what was your initial reaction to
hearing the diagnosis anorexia nervosa?
You, I've talked to you before andyou mentioned that your daughter
suffered with anorexia nervosa.
And I also want to ask you, howdid this diagnosis come about?
When did you figure out that this wasthe actual name for her eating disorder?
(05:10):
What kinds of emotionscame to you at that moment?
And did you ever feel the needto blame anyone at the situation?
Kevin Olmsted (05:17):
So, as I was saying, you're so confused about this lack of eating.
In early summer generally is when you haveto get signed off on for fall sports in
high school and she's not eating and she'sgoing through all of this, just rebelling.
And acting out and all I can putit in context of is like, I just
gotta get her to the doctor.
There's something wrong here.
Oh, hey, under the guise of you gottaget signed off for fall sports, I'm
(05:38):
gonna get you an early check up in June.
That's gonna solve this.
And unfortunately, the first doctorwe went to, uh, this physician,
didn't understand eating disorders.
And so all this physician did wasrefer us to a dietitian, which still,
until somebody tells you eatingdisorder, until somebody sits you down
and sits you in the face with a fryingpan and says, wake, up you're just
(06:00):
kind of confused and thinking, well,she's going through something, there's
something wrong, she's just acting out.
And there's so much confusion throughJune and July, and it wasn't until,
kind of mid to late July of fiveyears ago, that, this dietician said
you should go see this psychologistfor like, okay, maybe that'll help.
And we went into the first appointmentwith a psychologist one night on a Friday.
And this psychologist tookone look at my daughter.
(06:22):
And just alarm bellswere ringing in her head.
And she said, I'm getting you in tosee this physician tomorrow morning.
We said, oh, we've heard of her.
We have an appointment in two months.
And this psychologist said, nope,you're going tomorrow morning at eight.
And somehow she got us in.
We got to this physician's office.
Our daughter was taken away from us.
And we're sitting there and we don'tknow how or why this is going to be
(06:42):
different than any other physicianand we're not thinking eating
disorder because nobody ever told us.
It wasn't part of our vernacular,but it was like kind of getting
promoted to the big leagues.
Um, the doctor came out and got my wifeand I after half an hour and took us into
a room and just and right then and thereis when it all just came broad clear.
She said, your daughter'svastly underweight.
(07:03):
She's medically unstable.
Her life is at risk right now.
Her weight is, incredibly low.
Her heart rate is on the vergeof us cracking her chest.
And she starts talking aboutblood pressure and things like
orthostasia and malnourishment.
And I think what it is, is not that you'rein denial, but maybe in the back of my
head it's all been processing, processing,processing, and then she finally just
(07:24):
said it all, and it came slamming throughto the front, and it's, I mean, I'm an
educated guy, I've been around the worlda lot, it's not like I've never heard
of anorexia, but that was a distantthing that I never really knew about.
But, to be fair, until you know somebodywith anorexia, or a drinking problem,
or cancer, it's always somethingover there, and it's not yours.
Yeah.
And when that doctor said, bythe way, I just called Stanford,
(07:47):
they have a room available.
You're taking her there today.
From that moment of the discussionthat our daughter walks into the
room when she sat between my wifeand I and looked at that doctor,
she had a look on her face andshe didn't fight, she didn't
argue, she didn't say anything.
I think she just knew that this wasthe dawning, this was the reckoning.
And this is where it's going to start,or maybe it's no longer going to end.
(08:09):
And when the doctor said, you haveanorexia nervosa, you need to be
re nourished, you need to go to thehospital, your life does not start
until you do all these things right now.
There was no fight.
We drove to our house, wepacked up, we didn't know.
We just packed up some clothing andsweats and blankets and whatever.
Got in the car and Stanford's aboutan hour from us and the whole time.
(08:30):
And then it's kind of, you're in afog and it's kind of like a dream.
But I think the whole time, maybeI'm feeling more confident and happy.
Like, wait, there's a name to this.
Somebody at least told us what it is.
And we got to the hospital,we go to the fourth floor.
And it's almost like we'rechecking into a hotel and we
got bags and where are we going?
And they immediately grabbed her, tookher to the room, IV, heart monitor,
(08:52):
sitting, and they started doingintake like we knew what was going on.
And during this intake is when it hit me.
I'm like, Oh shit, this is real.
Like, this is a thing.
Like, this isn't like, Oh, she'sgot the flu or she's got COVID.
Like she's got a serious mentaldisorder and she could have died a
week or two if we hadn't done anything.
And I don't think my wife andI ever got around to blaming or
(09:12):
being angry or being resentful.
We're very much the kind of peoplethat are like, okay, accept, solve
the problem and move forward.
And I, I can still remember, on thefourth floor at Stanford hospital,
when she's sitting in a bed and theyhave a nurse in there and they bring
in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
And the nurse is like, Ineed to be here for this.
I'm like, be here for what?
She's like the first snack.
(09:33):
I'm like, what do you mean?
And my daughter was shaking and cryingwhile she put that peanut butter
and jelly sandwich to her mouth.
I think it took her half an hour.
And that's really when it hit us.
Melissa Peruch (09:44):
Yeah.
That's rough.
I think experiencing that from anoutside perspective and watching
those types of images play out.
I think it's rough.
Um, but I think like you said, I findit interesting that I guess having a
diagnosis and having a name to it isin a way somewhat comforting in the
fact that you at least know that it issomething and there is a name to it.
(10:08):
and there is viable treatment optionsand ways for this to play out so
that it doesn't end someone's life.
And so the next question I wanted toask is, Experiencing this disorder
the way that you did from an outsideperspective, what do you think is
the hardest part about developingand or conquering an eating disorder?
Kevin Olmsted (10:29):
Oh, I've talked about this for years and years.
I'm very involved with a lot ofparent groups, not only for mutual
support, um, I'm involved with alot of caregiver support groups.
I've found dozens and dozens anddozens of families and parents and
fathers that come to me for advice.
I say all that to then say this answer.
It's so hard to figure outwhy your kid came to this.
(10:50):
And the ultimate answer is.
We can say it's genetic.
You can say it's hereditary.
You can say it was caused by social media.
There's a great expression thatsays heredity loads the gun,
environment pulls the trigger.
But no one's to blame.
It just happens.
And how you react to it is thefirst lesson you go through.
(11:11):
You can treat it, butyou can't control it.
All you can control ishow you react to it.
And how you stay engaged with it, and howmuch you're willing to learn and spend
the time and lean in and never give up.
Unfortunately, as opposed to say, andI don't mean to make light of something
that's deadly, say breast cancer.
(11:31):
If the National Football League hasan annual Breast Cancer Awareness
Week where they all wear pink cleats,you have to think that they, there's
an enormous regimen of research,treatment options, facilities,
and doctors ready to tackle that.
Anorexia is one of the few disordersout there that there is no pill,
there's no cast, there's nomethodology that works stone cold.
(11:53):
It's still very unfiguredout, if you will.
even having this conversationshows we're all still finding
our way forward in the dark.
Melissa Peruch (12:02):
Yeah.
And with your work that you do with somany parents and families, and, I know
you've talked on different podcastsbefore, have you seen like general
trends within families, or things thatthey're trying to do that maybe might
not be the most helpful in the situation?
Kevin Olmsted (12:22):
So, whether I've seen the trends or maybe I've just been
around long enough that I finallyhave a 40, 000 foot view, I'd say the
following are pretty much dead on true.
If you are medically at risk, um, andyou need whatever refers to as a higher
level of care, initially you've got togo to a hospital or you need to live in
an inpatient facility that essentiallyforces you to eat to get you medically
(12:46):
stabilized to get you refed to the pointwhere your heart is no longer at risk.
So, while people hateresidential, my daughter was
in residential for two months.
And it was awful.
To this day, I think back of the day Idropped her off on that and it chokes
me up and it kills me to think about.
We've also rehospitalized her twicesince residential, but so the basic
trend is nothing matters if your kidshealth is at risk, even if you're
(13:09):
getting an academy award this afternoon.
I don't care.
You take your kid to the hospital.
You take your kid to res.
Beyond that.
I think there's been a much broaderunderstanding and acceptance
of FBT, family based treatment.
Where you're treating it at home, um,with parents who are on board 24 hours
a day, seven days a week, as opposed totry to rely on an outpatient program.
(13:30):
A lot of people try outpatientprograms, they try virtual programs,
but those are easy to ignore or skip.
If you're doing it at home, whetherwith two parents, one parent, an
aunt, a foster parent, FBT is stillprobably the most effective model.
Having said that, there's noweven more growth in the FBT model.
You're finding residential facilitiesthat are saying, a kid will live with
(13:52):
us full time, but then the parents willcome all day and will train in FBT.
UC San Diego has an amazing 10 houra day outpatient program that teaches
FBT while the kids are there being fed,yet the parents come and learn FBT.
The eating recovery center inDenver is a full time residential
step down to PHP, but they comeand train the parents in FBT.
(14:13):
Kind of maybe then lookingforward, um, on your trend thing.
I think there's a couple of things comingdown is one of them is across all mental
disorders is the use of psychedelics andwhile they're talking about psilocybin
and MDMA with people with PTSD andbipolar, there's already research being
done at UCSF and UCSD to use those forkids with eating disorders, specifically
(14:36):
anorexia and the best metaphor is ifyou're skiing in the snow and you always
ski through the same ruts, you never getout of those ruts and get into powder.
Sessions with a trained, group withpsychedelics can allow somebody with
an eating disorder to get out of thoseruts and ski in new directions and drop
those old behaviors, beliefs and habitsand then a really, really nascent but
(14:58):
emerging trend that I'm seeing, is theconcept of a mentor, a trusted ally
who can guide somebody through this.
There's a very small industry outthere, but it's incredibly effective
where you will have a live in eatingdisorder coach come to your home.
This usually is somebody whohas recovered on their own and
gone through years of training.
(15:18):
And experience and they walk into yourhouse and it could be for a month,
two months, six months, and they livefull time with you as a family, but
they are that person that your childturns to who's not a doctor, not a
psychologist, not there to treat thatkid who's there to say, look, I'm kind
of your full time live in life coach.
And there, there forms an alliance and atrust and a bond between a child and this
(15:42):
live in coach that has nothing to do withoh, I have to go to another f'ing doctor.
So, that's kind of a trend that I seekind of maybe coming down the line in the
next 5 to 10 years, but it does exist now.
Melissa Peruch (15:54):
By the looks of it, you have a very vast knowledge about
treatment options and resources thatare out there and I wanted to ask if
you could touch a little bit more onresidency and inpatient versus FBT and
what those treatments are like, and,maybe pros and cons that you've personally
seen from your personal experience.
Kevin Olmsted (16:15):
So, uh, again, I think early on, if you're,
if you're a caregiver, I don'twant to just assume parents.
If you're a caregiver for a person withan eating disorder, and this hits you
first on, you're absolutely overwhelmed.
You're emotionally and you'reeducationally just so overwhelmed,
you have no idea what to do.
Not to mention then they tellyou there's no pill for this.
There's no thing.
(16:37):
And sometimes the initial fear.
Is well, who's gonna help me solve this?
How do I outsource it?
Where do I go hire the guy?
Where's the place that I buy the thing?
And so what's nice about aresidential facility is residential
you usually have to qualify.
You have to be a certain BMIheight, weight and heart issues.
Um, you can be toohealthy for residential.
(16:57):
But um, so in one sense,you're outsourcing it.
You're saying I want my child togo live somewhere full time where
they're surrounded by experts whocan then train me, but I don't have
to live with it and not to say thatyou don't love or you don't care.
It is incredibly scary.
You have no idea whatthe hell is going on.
So residential is a way of outsourcing,but it's also a way to build a base.
(17:19):
And I mean this truly.
Any kid who has gone and lived in ares for any amount of time, no matter
how long they're treated, at leastthey kind of went to boot camp too.
They understand like, you know, I gotto eat full time, six meals a day.
I have to have my movement restricted.
I have to have my actions looked at.
I have to be accountable.
They learn the ropes as a patient asmuch as the parents learn the ropes as a
(17:39):
caregiver on what it takes to treat this.
Plus they get a lot ofeducation about what it means.
The step down from res.
It's partial hospitalization or PHP.
It's a daily outpatient or maybeyou drop the caregiver drops the kid
off, does breakfast at home, but getsdropped off for morning snack at 10.
And then you pick them back up at seven.
During that program, it's a littlemore learning and interactive.
(18:01):
They kind of help make their ownlunch, plan their own snacks,
make their own dinners, help tomake it in a group setting with
lots of therapy group sessions.
And as a side note, you canimagine a bunch of bitter teenage
kids with an eating disorder.
The last thing they want to do issit around with a bunch of other kids
who have eating disorders and roleplay and talk about their problems.
So I would take res and PHP and thenthere's a very small subset called IOP.
(18:24):
Which is maybe only three hours a day.
Let's say you're like90 percent recovered.
You just need a littletouchstone every day.
I just need to go in after workor school for three hours and have
somebody walk me through my dinner justto make myself feel like I got this.
So that in all sense is almostkind of the early stages or if you
feel like you can't handle and youneed to outsource this to somebody.
Um, quite often the gold standard,FBT, family based treatment.
(18:47):
No matter whether you're an alcoholic ora druggie or whatever, you can go from
facility to facility, facility to group togroup to group, and at some point, you've
got to come home and live your life.
Anybody with any kind of mental disorder,you can't treat it until the end.
At some point, patient has to embrace,understand, and acknowledge, and
treat themselves, and walk awayor find a way to deal with it.
(19:08):
Family based treatment, there'snobody there who works for a living.
It's not a nurse that's going home.
It's not a new physician every month.
It's your mom and dad.
It's your step parents.
It's your older brother.
Somebody who loves you 24/ 7and is going to be there, and
the whole time you're at home.
By the way, at res, they take away yourphone, you can't be on snapchat and
tiktok, you can't be on instagram, soat least at home, you get your own bed,
you get your phone, maybe you see yourfriends during the day, talk to the dog,
(19:30):
watch tv with mom and dad at night, Youalso fight and have the greatest amount
of battles with the people who loveyou the most during FBT, so while it's
generally the most effective, it doesbring up an incredible amount of conflict.
But then that's where so muchof the caregiver support network
that's developed the last few yearsis there to train the caregivers.
There is a dichotomy betweenresident PHP and FBT.
(19:52):
I also would see it as a continuum.
And then in the middle in there,if somebody relapses, they can go
off to a hospitalization, but thatwould be how I explain those two.
Melissa Peruch (20:02):
Yeah.
That's some great information.
And I know there's like so manypeople that probably don't even
know that these types of treatmentoptions or facilities even exist.
What you said about the breast cancerawareness month and how there's
certain awareness built around certaindiseases and certain knowledge that's
(20:23):
built around these types of diseases.
I wanted to talk about how there's suchvague knowledge about eating disorders,
which is what you mentioned earlier.
Why do you think that is and why do youfeel it has been treated like taboo to
talk about in a more general public lens?
Kevin Olmsted (20:39):
It's kind of a $64,000 question, honestly.
It's really just never hadits 15 minutes of fame.
I believe there's so muchshame and secrecy around it.
So much embarrassment and a senseof control that either people are
embarrassed to talk about it, theydon't understand it, or nobody's
going to know that my goddamn kid'sgot a problem, you know, that, that
attitude and because it's misunderstoodand they don't know the treatments.
(21:02):
A lot of parents are like,honey, you'll be fine.
Just eat more or yeah, you look skinny.
You look fine.
Um, and so that culture has beenswirling for all of humanity and
because it's so quiet and misunderstood,no attention is paid to it.
So therefore, it remainsquite misunderstood.
And so therefore, fake factsand fake knowledge show up.
It's a girl only disease.
(21:22):
It's a skinny girl disease.
It's a rich girl disease.
It's, you know, cause who do you see?
You see models.
You see famous people on TMZ.
Nobody looks at the real life eatingdisorder kids in every community
in America, every gender, everygender identity, boys as well.
What's happening right now,there's a upwelling finally, at
(21:43):
least in my experience in the lastfive years of the shame and the
secrecy starting to melt away.
And the more people that are out loudand proud, the more people who host a
podcast and talk about themselves andthe more people who write books or the
more people who join groups and talkto their friends and neighbors, it has
to start as kind of at the groundswelland it's going to go up more and more.
(22:07):
Even the, even the men's group I'ma part of, I'm a part of a group
of fathers that get together everytwo weeks from around the world.
And those are dads whoare like, I'm in trouble.
I'm upset.
I'm naive.
I'm vulnerable.
I'm going to cry.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
Can somebody please help me?
That attitude didn't exist 5 to 10 yearsago in the eating disorder community.
And the more that I bring dadsto it or dads bring me or dads
bring other dads, then it becomesokay for dads to talk about this.
(22:29):
And it's no longer just a littlegirl disease or a mom's talking
about when they were younger disease.
Melissa Peruch (22:33):
Yeah.
And I agree with a lotof things that you said.
And you did talk about like someof the stereotypes and biases that
come up when talking about eatingdisorders, which leads into my
next question about stereotypes.
Some of the ones that I hear mostoften are the ones that you mentioned,
like it's a girl disease, but alsothat it's a self inflicted disease.
(22:54):
So could you touch a little more on thesestereotypes that you have encountered and
give your insight on what eating disorderstruly are and what they aren't to debunk
some of the things that are being said.
Kevin Olmsted (23:07):
So a lot of the stereotypes, um, I just wanted
to be skinnier, so I ate less.
Um, I'm not really that sick.
I'm vain.
Um, I'm doing this to keepup with everybody else.
The other stereotype isthat you have to be skinny.
Atypical anorexia is a very real thing.
You could, you and I couldlook at a tremendous lineup of
(23:27):
men and women, girls and boys.
And I'll tell you the worst stereotypeis the following expression.
You don't look anorexic.
Everybody thinks you haveto look anorexic, right?
Anorexia is an eating disorder.
If you are starving yourself, If you areharming your body through the restriction
of food or the manipulation of food, evenif it may not affect your appearance,
you're not only very sick mentally,but you're compromised medically.
(23:50):
Your heart rate can still be awful.
You can be orthostatic.
You can be on the verge ofneeding hospitalization.
So maybe the very first stereotype is youdon't have to look like you have an eating
disorder to have an eating disorder.
Eating disorders are mental disorders andthey can germinate in a couple of ways.
They can germinate as, let'sjust say, you physically start
to overexercise and eat to diet.
(24:12):
And as you diet and eat less and exercisemore and you become malnourished, you
get a little kind of, euphoric andunfortunately, you can kind of maybe
turn the dial too far to get stuckand the euphoria creates a mental
state that reinforces the activity.
Um, then you can also have it startpsychologically where usually through
puberty, let's just say that a youngboy or girl goes through puberty and
(24:34):
starts to have ideas that they neverhad before and thoughts that they
never had before and then they turnthose thoughts and ideas into actions
and then those actions become habits.
And then those habits reinforce whatgerminated normally as psychological.
So you can have it start psychologically,manifest physically, you can start it
physically and manifest sociologically.
It's not to blame, nobody shamed theminto it, um, nobody beat them into it.
(24:58):
I mean, other than somebody who'sa prisoner of war, nobody is
forced into an eating disorder.
So those would be thekind of the stereotypes.
And so that kinda leads into whatyou're asking, what they truly
are and what they truly are not.
They are a mental disorder and soyou do have to treat them as such.
There will take years and years ofa lot of understanding and a lot
(25:18):
of therapy, but it is a long roadand usually you will have way more
success receiving therapy or um, orunderstanding yourself once you're weight
is restored, you have a higher level ofnutrition for a longer period of time.
Your brain suffers if it doesn'thave carbs and fat every day.
(25:39):
Your body can't process certain vitaminsand minerals without fat every day.
You need to be re nourished forprobably six to nine months until
your whole body is, it's almostlike a big data center or computer.
It's all got to come back online.
All the lights have to be flashing green.
Everything's got to be working together.
And at that point, that's when theyears of therapy start and you can
go through years of therapy and behealthy and be, um, you can be medically
(26:02):
stable, but you're still workingthrough your beliefs, your behaviors,
your habits and your issues with food.
What are they not?
It's not a choice.
It's not a lifestyle.
It's nothing that anybody wants and it'snothing that anybody should be ashamed of.
Melissa Peruch (26:18):
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
You wrote a book about your experiencetitled, "Scared Dad Feeding," and it's
on your website, which is going to belinked in the description of this episode.
So, I wanted to ask what does thattitle mean to you and focusing on
that parental lens, were there everany moments where you felt you could
have treated the situation better?
Kevin Olmsted (26:40):
I've always kept a diary on my computer.
I probably have the last 10 years.
I was a lit major in college, butit doesn't really mean anything.
I went into selling wine for a week.
Um, I like writing.
Always liked writing.
Writing makes me happy.
It's cathartic for me.
It helps me work through processes.
So as I was going through this withmy daughter, I started journaling
as a way to keep my sanity.
(27:01):
And then the journaling became alittle more, um, purpose driven.
And even I told my daughter aboutit, and she very early on said, you
should write a book about all this.
And so the entire book waswritten very much in the moments
in the first year and a half
It's like I wrote it from thefront lines while it was happening.
And to this day, I stand bya thousand percent of it.
(27:24):
I've evolved my thinking on some of it.
I've come to learn that Iwas wrong on some of it.
But it's out there to say,this is what it's like.
Now, specifically to the title, it'sprobably the most, overt and in your face
and yet, nuanced homage to Harriet Brown.
She wrote a book 14 yearsago called Brave Girl Eating.
And while I never meant to mimic it, Ican remember one night sitting in the
(27:47):
backyard, and I just remember saying,if she's a brave girl eating, I'm a
scared dad feeding, because that wasmy entire identity, was I was just
paranoid all the time, I was scared, Iwas crying, I was a mess, and all I did
was feed this girl six times a day, Ihad no job, I stayed at home with a 14
year old girl my entire life was that.
God, the moments I could have been better.
Again, losing my cool, um, tryingto use logic with my daughter, or
(28:13):
trying to get mad at her for beingsick, because you just lose it.
You know, you get to the end of yourrope, you just get so tired, or you don't
understand, or you're not educated enough,or maybe you've just been through it for
too many days at a time, where I screamedat her once, I said, you know, I quit my
job, I quit my career, I quit life, I quithumanity, so I could stay home with you.
(28:35):
And I remember saying that to her onceon the way to the doctor and you know,
there were just times when I wasn't mybest because you just get so worn down.
I also wish I wouldn't have had to dropher off at res or I wish I wouldn't have
had to drop her off at the hospital alot of the times because I would drop
her off and walk out and cry because youdon't want to do that to a little girl.
Melissa Peruch (28:53):
Yeah, I think it's very difficult for both parties.
I just think compiled from azoomed out version, it's just
a very unfortunate situation.
And I think it's just easy toget boiled up inside as a parent.
You're trying so hard to getthis person to wake up and
notice the reality of things.
And it's just so hard forthe other person to do it.
(29:16):
But I think no one is to blamein a situation where you are left
to fight together, but there's solittle knowledge to bridge that gap.
But as a parent, I wanted to ask for allthe parents out there that are listening
to this podcast right now, or peoplethat are guardians or have family members
(29:37):
that they know are suffering with aneating disorder, could you offer some
words of wisdom of things they shouldconsider doing or actions or comments
that would be harmful to recovery?
Like some basic maybe do's ordon'ts that could be helpful?
Kevin Olmsted (29:54):
The first thing I say to any parent is step one, what's
the state of your child's health?
Are they medically compromised right now?
Regardless of what treatment you thinkyou're going through or helping them,
is their heart rate, is their bloodpressure stable and in a safe range?
Are they orthostatic?
Check the blood work, um, tomake sure they're not purging.
You can see the lack ofelectrolytes in that.
(30:17):
For young women, what's their iron level?
Let's make sure they don'tbecome iron deficient.
For young women, you want to do somethingcalled a DEXA scan because you can
lose bone density and osteoporosisis an incredibly high risk in women.
Again, I know this is very female focused.
Has your daughter lost her menses?
Um, do you see additional hair growthon their body because they have so
low fat, the bodies is too cold.
(30:38):
My point is step one, isyour child medically at risk?
And if your child is medically at risk.
Get them to a hospital, getthem to a residential program.
And now the first step is to make surethey live, make sure they do not starve
themselves to death, make sure thatthey are not so overwhelmed that they
commit suicide because there is a lotof self harming and eating disorders,
specifically anorexia have the highestmortality rate of any mental disorder
(31:01):
ever diagnosed because they eitherstarve themselves to death or they're
overwhelmed and they kill themselves.
Number two, find community, reachout, ask questions, get educated.
Don't try to do it on your own.
Find an eating disorder physician,find an eating disorder program at a
hospital and start asking everybodythere, who are my local resources?
My next piece of advice is youhave to think about treating
(31:22):
this as a treatment team.
You need a physician whounderstands eating disorders.
You need a psychologist whois fluent in not only eating
disorders but hopefully FBT.
You need a psychiatrist, andthis is not up for debate, but I
understand where this is going to go.
Medication can play a huge role inhelping somebody with an eating disorder.
There's a lot of medications thatcan lower the anxiety, that can, that
(31:46):
can lower the barriers to allowing achild to eat and eating is medicine.
And we can all debate medicationsand vaccinations and that's fine.
But get a psychiatrist involved.
Get a registered dietitian involved.
It's very easy for people tocall themselves a nutritionist.
A registered dietitian is somebodyyou want to have involved.
They can help you meal plan andunderstand density of fats and proteins.
(32:07):
And maybe at the end you can alsofind maybe a mentor, maybe a coach.
Um, the things you don't reallydon't want to do is Don't fall
victim to the stereotypes.
If you don't see it, it didn't happen.
You have to inspect what you expect.
Don't say, oh, he ate lunch at school.
No, he didn't.
He had lunch in his room.
No, he didn't.
If you didn't see it, it didn't happen.
(32:28):
If your kid's over 18, you needto get releases of information.
If they're under 18, you need to getthe report from the doctor every time
they go in or you go in with them.
You can't be angry at your kid.
You can't blame your kid.
You cannot blame yourself.
You cannot blame yourself.
It sucks.
And you're all in it together.
But just know that there is aworld out there of treatment
(32:49):
of people of communities andprocesses that can help you.
If you, as a caregiver are so overwhelmed,you can't help your kid, go for a walk,
take a day off and have somebody help you.
Treating this disease is incrediblyexpensive and resource intensive.
Um, you need insurance, you need timeoff, um, drugs cost a lot of money and
(33:10):
a small piece of advice I give people isthere's the Federal Medical Leave Act.
Where you can get eight to 12 weeksoff paid, um, where you can stay
home with your child, that's a greatoption for parents who are working.
Melissa Peruch (33:21):
Yeah.
And I think people will find that helpful.
I think it's very important thatpeople are aware of the actions
that they can take and some of thethings that won't be as helpful.
My final question is, finally asa dad, but also as a human being,
what is your advice to thosestruggling with an eating disorder?
What do you want listeners to takeaway, and what do you want them to know?
Kevin Olmsted (33:45):
If you're struggling with an eating disorder, it's not your fault.
You need to find a reason that you wantto get away from that eating disorder.
It's so comfortable and it'sa safe identity for you.
You go back to it becauseit's what you know.
It's what you think makes you special.
Know that you're special for alot of other reasons and your body
is worth respecting and honoring.
(34:07):
And you want to fuel that body andgrow old and live a long, long life.
90 percent of socializing in thisworld is going out to dinner,
going to your friend's house,going to the farmer's market.
You can be a functioning drugaddict or a functioning alcoholic
and kind of get by in life.
You cannot be a functioningstarve yourself person.
Find a reason to love yourself.
For anybody who's listening tothis, I self published a book
(34:28):
with my name on it and I put mywebsite in the back for a reason.
If you have a question, I'm not sayingI can, I can cure your problems.
I'm not saying I'm going to solveand help you heal your child.
But if you have questions, give me a call.
Um, I'm just happy to payit forward or pay it back.
And give advice and givedirection to anybody.
The last thing I'll say is, uh, asawful as this has been, I like the
(34:48):
person who I am five years later.
It's not that I didn't like who I was fiveyears before, but obviously I'm changed.
I like who I've become andI like the people I surround
myself with and I like what I do.
So anybody has any questions, you'llprobably put my contact info up there.
I'm happy to help.
Melissa Peruch (35:03):
Yeah, perfect.
And just some closing remarks, ifyou could share an update about
where your daughter is right now andwhere your family currently stands.
Kevin Olmsted (35:10):
So most of the book was written in 2020, flash forward to 2024.
Um, she graduated high school in 2022 inan absolute tailspin, complete spiral.
I mean, she went into a relapseand this, we barely got her across
the graduation stage in 2022.
Uh, we had to move to San Diego formost about four and a half months in
the summer of 2022 for the UC San Diegooutpatient program just to stabilize
(35:32):
her, um, and getting her on that planewas an act of Congress, but we got her
stabilized in through the fall of 2022.
And then we were able to find, comeacross a new treatment team and,
we were able to find a peer mentor.
We were able to find a dietitian thatshe resonated with and she trusted.
While at the same time we were keepingher out of college and she knew that
(35:53):
we were keeping her home from college.
And I think she realized that it was real.
Her friends were gone.
She was still struggling.
And all we were doingwas trying to love her.
And so through the fall of 2022 and thenthrough the spring of 2023, she found the
strength with this new treatment team.
And last year in the fall of2023, we sent her off to college.
(36:16):
And as you and I are recording here today,she's already called me three times.
Um, she's eight weeks away from cominghome from her freshman year in college.
Her vitals are stable.
Her weight is stable.
Her blood is stable.
She admits to me that she still struggleswith the thinking and the behaviors and
all the habits, but she kept herselfstable and she walked the walk on her
own and she's, she's proud of herselfand she misses us and we're not the
(36:40):
awful, horrible people that she told usabout years ago and she wants to look
forward to coming home this summer.
Melissa Peruch (36:45):
That's amazing.
Well, I just wanted toclose it off by saying.
I'm proud of where your daughter has come.
I know going through an eating disorder.
It's really hard.
And I think one of the things that youyearn most for is hearing those words.
I'm proud of you.
Um, I know that's the phrasethat I yearned for for a long
(37:05):
time throughout my journey.
Um, so I just wanted to say, I'mreally proud of your daughter
for where she has come, but I'malso really proud of you guys.
For sticking with her and for being withher and for learning so much and now for
helping so many people after that I thinkit takes a lot of guts, and a lot of
strength to actually do that and immerseyourself in this world where you once had
(37:27):
struggled for so long to actually helppull other people out of the quicksand.
I'm proud that I have met you and I'mpretty sure the listeners at home are
going to be proud at hearing this story.
And well, I thank you so muchfor your time, and I didn't
have any more questions.
Kevin Olmsted (37:46):
Thank you for having me.
This was amazing.
Thank you.
Melissa Peruch (37:54):
We hope you enjoyed this episode and stick around
to hear what other individualshave to share in future ones.
You can listen to Connectopod on Podbean,Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get
your podcasts, and visit connectopod.
net to see all of whatwe do and have in store.
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