Advancing Research

Improving Outcomes Through Medical & Therapeutic Advancements

Eating disorders are one of the most prevalent diseases we have and it’s the most common form of mental illness. Every year, there are 30 million sufferers in the United States in need of help. It’s a complex biological and psychological illness that requires equally complex treatments.

Unfortunately, the amount of federal funding for research into eating disorders is insignificant. It’s disproportionately low when you consider the number of people affected by eating disorders compared to many other federally-funded programs from the National Institute for Health.

Early Career Investigators Research Program

jocelyn lebow

One of the reasons we created the Foundation was to fund early career investigators in need of seed money to experiment with novel treatment approaches. Each year, we select a new researcher whose work we will fund because we believe their work will further the understanding of and our ability to better treat eating disorder sufferers.

Meet Dr. Jocelyn Lebow, the Eating Recovery Foundation’s 2016 Early Career Investigator Award recipient. For the next two years, she will research how we can more effectively treat adolescents with eating disorders. Dr. Lebow will start by trying a therapeutic approach that has shown to be effective with adults, but has never been tried with teenagers. She will test this psychotherapy model and we will share her results with all professionals.

Over 90% of people with an eating disorder are between the 18 and 25. While we’ve got good treatments, they only help about 50% of sufferers and that’s not enough. This research will be crucial for the other 50% who aren’t responding to the treatments that we currently have.

Dr. Jocelyn Lebow

How You Can Help

If we rely solely on federal funding for eating disorder research, it will take decades for us to make any meaningful progress in treatment methodologies that will improve outcomes. With about one person dying every hour as a result of an eating disorder, we cannot afford to wait years. That’s too many lives lost.

Please help us accelerate much-needed research by making a donation to our Early Career Research Program.

Through Colorado Gives, you can choose which of our national programs you'd like your contribution to go towards.

If you already have a PayPal account set up, this is a quick and easy option to give.

Eating Recovery Center is accredited through the Joint Commission. This organization seeks to enhance the lives of the persons served in healthcare settings through a consultative accreditation process emphasizing quality, value and optimal outcomes of services.

Organizations that earn the Gold Seal of Approval™ have met or exceeded The Joint Commission’s rigorous performance standards to obtain this distinctive and internationally recognized accreditation. Learn more about this accreditation here.

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