St. Paul mom shares hard-won advice on eating disorders

The final week of February is Eating Disorders Awareness Week, a time to shine a light on an often misunderstood illness that affects millions of people. For families, the battle against eating disorders can be devastating emotionally, physically and financially.

Emily Gurnon’s daughter has been fighting severe anorexia for years. Gurnon, who lives in St. Paul, spoke to MPR News about what parents can do and shared resources available for those who struggle with an eating disorder.

The transcript below has been edited lightly for clarity. Click on the audio player above to hear the conversation. Scroll down for a list of resources.

First, tell us a little about your daughter’s journey with anorexia.

My daughter is 24 now, and her dad and I did not even realize that she was sick with this illness until she was 21. She was in college in another state, getting ready to graduate, and unbeknownst to us, she was actually in the hospital.

Her providers told her that they were not going to let her out to walk for graduation unless she disclosed her illness to her dad and me. She told me that she estimates she’s been dealing with it since she was maybe 15 years old.

Eating disorders are often misunderstood. What do you wish more people knew about them?

When a parent goes online to look at warning signs of eating disorders, they might see the obvious things, like your child is losing a lot of weight, or your child is very concerned about dieting, that sort of thing.

But there are other more subtle signs, and they’re kind of strange things, like your kid may be really interested in cooking shows. My daughter’s that way. They tend to get very interested in what other people are eating. They might be really interested in cooking, but then they don’t eat the food that they cook.

Any kind of dietary restriction in a teenager who didn’t previously do it is something that parents should definitely pay attention to. And feeling constantly cold and certainly for girls, losing their period.

As I was reading about eating disorders, I was struck by how severe they can be physically. Tell us more about that.

There’s an excellent book written by a physician who’s a specialist in eating disorders. It’s called “Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders.” The author Jennifer L. Gaudiani writes about the effects on the heart, the effects on one’s bones.

If a person with an eating disorder is vomiting frequently, there can be real problems with the chemicals in your body and imbalances that can really affect your metabolism. It’s extremely worrisome.

One of the things that this doctor talks about a lot is when eating disorders are fatal, one of the things that they suspect is actually happening is that the blood sugar level is going so low that their heart stops. So that’s a big concern.

Tell us some of the biggest challenges you faced in getting your daughter the help she needed once you became aware of her condition.

It’s tough to get somebody to stay in treatment long enough so that they become more comfortable with the weight gain. That anxiety about weight gain is one of the biggest obstacles, but paradoxically, what some of the medical professionals say is that the more weight kids gain, the less power and control the eating disorder has over their brain.

What advice do you have for parents dealing with this?

If you suspect anything, I would really encourage people to hit it hard and hit it fast, because the longer an eating disorder is allowed to go on, the more entrenched it becomes.

And one of the other things I just want to throw out there is it’s really important, if a kid is living at home, to look at your own behaviors, too, as a mom or as a dad, because we’re all steeped in this diet culture, and it is so toxic for people who have a propensity toward eating disorders.

I would say, if you have a scale in your bathroom, get rid of it. Stop dieting yourself. Don’t let your kids see that you’re buying diet foods. It's really important to kind of take away those sort of triggers and those messages from the rest of us that dieting is what everybody should be doing.

Resource List: National Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2025

Online

• National Alliance for Eating Disorders; Helpline 866-662-1235

• Eating Disorder Family Support Network – Mom2Mom (Private Facebook group for mothers of those with eating disorders)

• Eating Disorder Family Support Network – Man2Man (Private Facebook group for other family members of those with an eating disorder) 

• FEAST (Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders)

• AnorexiaFamily.com – Eva Musby

• “Eating Disorders from the Inside Out,” Laura Hill at TEDxColumbus

Books

• “Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders,” by Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani

• “Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too,” by Jenni Schaefer

• “Anorexia and Other Eating Disorders: How to Help Your Child Eat Well and Be Well,” by Eva Musby

• “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach,” by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

• “Anti-Diet,” by Christy Harrison

• “Fat Talk,” by Virginia Sole Smith

• “Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat: A Story of Bulimia,” by Stephanie Covington Armstrong

Podcasts

• “Behind the Bite” with Dr. Cristina A. Castagnini

• “The Eating Disorder Trap” with Robyn Goldberg

• “Rethinking Wellness” with Christy Harrison

• “Maintenance Phase” with Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes

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