How can you help someone with an eating disorder? You can help someone with an eating disorder by telling them you are concerned for them and give them the control to make their own decisions regarding treatment.
The best way is to talk about their emotions and how they are feeling. Tell them that you are worried and concerned and then let them start with outpatient therapy with someone who specializes in eating disorders. Even one visit to let the therapist do an assessment and decide what level of care she needs would help. But the best way to get somebody to get help is just to let them know how concerned you are because the other route will turn into power and control. A woman with an eating disorder usually has an eating disorder because of feeling like there is a lack of control. Their life is out of control, so that type of intervention, forcing her to do something and taking control just doesn't work.
In the case that it takes someone a long time to get help, we have had incidences where the husband or family member has had to say "this is getting too dangerous for me and you will either get help or I am leaving and taking the kids with me." Even physicians have been known to tell a woman that they will commit them to a psychiatric hospital unless they get help with their eating disorder. If it is an extreme state and they're still in such a state of denial, then of course the more active or intense intervention would be warranted.
