Thrive Together was started by Onn Manelson, whose then-13-year-old daughter was struggling with anorexia a few years ago.
By Shula Rosen
Eating disorders, along with other mental health issues, are growing at an alarming rate and affecting not only adults, but also young people at younger ages with each passing year.
Traditional treatments for adolescents have zeroed in on the patient, but an Israeli startup empowers parents to assist their children in their struggle to make peace with their body image and their relationship with food.
Thrive Together was started by Onn Manelson, whose then-13-year-old daughter was struggling with anorexia a few years ago.
Manelson was already well-established in the tech industry and decided to leverage AI tools to allow parents to become more involved in their children’s treatment and to enable families to provide mutual healing.
The digital program begins with an assessment and includes management tools, communities of parents who support one another, and advice on implementing treatment and consolidating successes.
“Parents are key when it comes to supporting a child with an eating disorder. But the health system doesn’t provide sufficient support for the caregivers due to a lack of resources; that’s where Thrive comes in,” Manelson tells ISRAEL21c.
“All research has proven that the more parents are available to support their children, the more successful the treatment is. And eating disorders are a chronic illness, so we’re talking about treatment cycles of several years,” he says.
Manelson described the difficulties parents face in detecting the warning signs of a severe eating disorder; a child may appear thinner, but without assistance, it is not always possible to pinpoint the problem.
“You don’t see it on your child until it gets to a point where they become very, very thin,” he says.
The platform reminds parents to provide daily reports recording their observations and answering questions about whether their child ate, visited their therapists, took their medications, and was in what mood.
The daily reports are then used to generate a weekly report that can be shared with professionals in charge of the child’s treatment.
Thrive was one of nine Israeli health startups, and the Dangoor Health-Tech Academy chose to support its UK partners in addressing healthcare challenges. The Academy was launched by the UK-Israel Tech Hub at the British Embassy in Israel, in collaboration with The Dangoor Foundation.
Manelson said his goal is to “change the landscape and approach” to how eating disorders are identified and treated.