Welcome to EatWell – a brand new eating disorder clinic in Toronto. At EatWell, we see patients who are experiencing symptoms of an eating disorder or disordered eating and we strive to provide all of the care you need under one roof by a team of people who understand eating disorders and are passionate about the work that they do.
EatWell was born to address a gap that exists in eating disorder treatment in Toronto. It’s a bridge between the hospital medical model and the current private centres in the city – both of which are inaccessible to so many people, who truly want help, because of long wait lists, inadequate programming or extremely high cost. Over years of clinical practice, our team has seen so many patients frustrated by the lack of good quality help that is available so we decided to create an eating disorder clinic downtown Toronto that not only provided everything we thought a patient would need but also right when they needed it, for as long as they needed it.
When we designed EatWell we wanted to take what we felt were the best parts of all of the different treatment options available for someone with an eating disorder in Toronto and put them all together. Hospital programs unfortunately have lengthy weight lists and primarily target patients who are medically unstable, which means most patients with eating disorders might never be a candidate for their programs. But hospitals provide access to physicians and psychiatrists, which can both be huge contributors to recovery. At our clinic, our family doctor sees all of our patients for blood work, ECGs or anything related to physical health as often as is required. Our psychiatrist deals with medication management for the eating disorder and also for other underlying mental health concerns that could be contributing to the eating disorder.
Intensive private programs typically provide more flexibility, more individualization but don’t usually include the physical monitoring component and can be cost prohibitive. We incorporated the important individualized, patient-centred model but provide less intensive treatment, which we hope offsets the associated cost and allows for a longer stay in our care. In addition to the medical doctors and psychiatrist, our team includes a naturopathic doctor who is responsible for the nutrition component of recovery and psychotherapists who work through the psychological and emotional components. These are the two pieces in recovery that are often standardized or missing altogether in hospital-based programming and are where the individualized approach comes into play at EatWell.
Our team understands that though eating disorders share similarities from person to person, what each person needs to recover is entirely unique to their circumstances. Because of this, each patient at EatWell has their own treatment plan that is tailored specifically to them and their plan changes over time as recovery is happening and needs are evolving.
We are excited to join the community of eating disorder resources in Toronto!