Adapt Eating Distress

Girls as young as eight are being taken to hospital with eating disorders, nurses warn.
Increasing numbers are developing anorexia or bulimia before even reaching puberty. Specialists say young girls are trying to emulate ‘impossibly’ thin celebrities and models, and becoming obsessed with their own bodies as a result.

There are also concerns that young girls are misinterpreting healthy eating advice being promoted by schools and surviving on little more than salad. Nurse Wendy Clark, who specialises in eating disorders, said she was treating increasing numbers of girls aged eight, nine and ten at St Cadoc’s Hospital in Newport, South Wales.

She told a Royal College of Nursing conference in London that the girls were ‘manipulating’ healthy eating messages in schools and simply deciding not to eat at all. The problem has become so serious, some schools are asking school nurses to patrol dining rooms to monitor eating habits, according to Nursing Standard magazine.

Anorexia and bulimia can be life threatening and sufferers are more at risk from heart attacks, irregular heartbeats and low blood pressure. Up to 1.6 million people in Britain are thought to have an eating disorder, and a fifth of these will die from an associated health problem.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1338659/The-year-old-anorexics-Nurses-warn-increase-eating-disorders-young-children.html#ixzz18CDuFpOz  (Taken from Daily Mail on 15/12/10)