Eating Recovery Center Researchers Receive Prize Nod from Journal of Eating Disorder Editors

DENVER, Colo. — Researchers at Eating Recovery Center (ERC) received the “Best Empirical Research” paper award on Oct. 20 from the Journal of Eating Disorders for their article, “Adverse childhood experiences among adults with eating disorders: Comparison to a nationally representative sample and identification of trauma profiles.”

The paper, written and researched by ERC Director of Research Renee D. Rienecke, PhD, FAED; ERC Senior Clinical Advisor Craig Johnson, PhD, CEDS, FAED; Daniel Le Grange, PhD, Benioff UCSF Professor in Children’s Health at the University of California, San Francisco; ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders and Severe Malnutrition Psychologist Jamie Manwaring, PsyD, CEDS; Founder & Executive Medical Director of ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders and Severe Malnutrition Philip S. Mehler, MD, FACP, FAED, CEDS; ERC Patient Experience & Research Manager Alan Duffy, MS; ERC Senior Clinical Advisor Susan McClanahan, PhD, CEDS; and ERC Research Consultant Dan V. Blalock, PhD was among the top cited papers in 2022 and voted as the top pick by a group of the journal’s associate editors based on the research quality of the paper and its impact on the field of eating disorders.

According to Rienecke, their research can help inform the development of trauma-informed care for patients with eating disorders. The study showed “adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, are considered a significant public health crisis and are associated with mental and physical health problems later in life.” Additionally, the research noted that the number of ACEs experienced by those with an eating disorder was higher than among those in the general population. Patients with binge eating disorder (BED) had the highest rates of ACEs; and those with different eating disorder diagnoses were associated with different patterns of ACEs.

“I was so surprised,” said Rienecke regarding the journal prize. “So many amazing papers are published in the Journal of Eating Disorders every year. For ours to have been chosen out of all those papers and been given this award is a huge honor. It is a wonderful acknowledgement and nice recognition of the high-caliber work that our research team does every day.”

To read the full research paper, visit: https://jeatdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40337-022-00594-x.