NOTES
- Marg Oaten's daughter was 10 years old when she developed anorexia
- Twelve years later, she is still fighting it, and it almost killed her
- "I was absolutely distraught. It is the worst thing in the world to know your daughter might die." - Marg Oaten, 54
- At her worst, Oaten's daughter existed on five flakes of cereal and a mouthful of water the entire day
- Children as young as 7 can suffer from eating disorders
- Older women, men, and boys also suffer from anorexia
- Anorexia is most common in young women
- In Britain, 5 to 10% of women 14 to 24 suffer from some form of eating disorder
- 1% of all females suffer from some kind of eating disorder (Professor Janet Treasure, head of the eating disorders service and research unit at King's College London)
- Bulimia nervosa (binging and vomiting) is 2 to 5 times more common than anorexia nervosa (restricting intake of food and drink)
- Both disorders can be fatal
- Two models from Latin America died this year after becoming anorexic
- Eating disorders also cause permanent health defects (brittle bones and infertility)
- What lead Oaten's daughter to anorexia was the fear of changes to her body during puberty/adolescence and the bullying at school
- Her weight plunged and she ended up in a hospital where she was an inpatient
- Two years after she was allowed home, she developed bulimia
- Oaten's daughter has had surgery for a prolapsed bowel, and still suffers from bulimia (she's 22 years old), but she is trying to get better
- Oaten has used her experience with eating disorders and her daughter to set up a support group in Hull, northern England
- Children as young as 7 can develop eating disorders
- Doctor Jon Goldin (child and adolescent psychiatrist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London) said, "We see children here as young as 7 or 8 with anorexia but that is very rare."
- When asked why children develop these eating disorders, Goldin said, "One contributing factor is that maybe children are under more pressure now than they were 10 or 20 years ago and somehow childhood is being prematurely shortened."
- A perception in society that thin is glamorous combined thin actresses in Hollywood and photographs of thin women in magazines, trigger both anorexia and bulimia
- Victims say they starve their bodies or binge and then vomit until there is nothing left but the taste of stomach acid on their lips
- Victims often exercise obsessively and feel fat even when grossly underweight
- "I hated the hunger and the cold and the tiredness, but the feeling of being able to control what I ate was brilliant." Rebecca Slack, 23 years old, became anorexic when she was 15 and dropped to 32 kilograms
- Age is no barrier to anorexia
- Young people are not the only ones at risk
- Alison Alden, became anorexic when she was 43, by a desire to lose weight at a time when she had been under pressure running a guest house
- In 3 years, Alden dropped from 55 kilograms to less than 38 kilograms
- "This couldn't be anorexia because I had never been ill in that way and I was too old." Alison Alden, 47 years old
- Alden got help for the sake of her family (3 children) or she would die
- Alden went to a doctor who diagnosed her with anorexia fueled by depression
- She was prescribed anti-depressants that helped strengthen her so she was able to recover
- There's no straight answer to anorexia
- Research has uncovered that genetics could trigger anorexia with factors including the onset of puberty, pressure from society, bullying, and low self-esteem
- Warning signs include an obsessive interest in dieting and a reluctance to eat around others
- It takes several years to be completely cured from an eating disorder, if you ever are completely cured
- The faster an eating disorder is spotted, the greater the chance of recovery is
- "It's all about having a reason to get better and building strategies to cope," said Alden
- Alison Alden has also written a book , "Sleeping Dragons and Poppy Seeds," about her struggle with anorexia.
1) How do children develop eating disorders? When I was younger, I definitely did not think about my weight. Especially not when I was 7 years old... what leads these children to think they're overweight?
2) About how many children develop eating disorders (12 years old or younger)?
3) How common or how rare is children / older adults developing eating disorders?
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