“We don't have pills for eating disorders.” Eating Disorder expert Carine El Khazen on signs for the early detection of mental health issues, and how to cope with the collective trauma of the pandemic.

This week Hashem caught up with Dr. Carine El Khazen, clinical psychologist at the American Center in Dubai, and Vice President of MEEDA (Middle East Eating Disorders Association).

Eating disorders are the deadliest form of mental illness, and 95% of sufferers are women between the ages of 15 to 25. Dr. Carine also shared that patients as young as 11 have come to seek treatment at her practice.

Growing up in a family of image-conscious female relatives on both parents’ sides, Carine witnessed early on and first-hand the effects of body consciousness and food obsessions, cementing her focus on eating disorders during her psychology career which spans over 15 years.

Hashem and Carine also discuss the devastating effects of social media channels like TikTok on children’s self esteem as well as the long-term effects of the pandemic on society’s collective mental well being.

Links

• Donate to the Lebanese Red Cross
• Donate: Beit el Baraka
• Embrace Lebanon
• The Lighthouse Conversations #20: Zeina El-Dana
• Overcoming Binge Eating by Christopher Fairburn (Amazon)
• American Center for Psychiatry and Neurology
• Middle East Eating Disorders Association
• Harvard Health: The secret to happiness? Advice from the longest running study on happiness