Tragic stories of very young who fall victim to anorexia

When Beth was 12-years-old her parents divorced. Both later remarried and as the two new families began to put down roots, Beth struggled to come to terms with the new arrangement.

While both her mother and father did their best to make her feel included in their second marriages, they both noticed their daughter had become tired and withdrawn. At first they put it down to the combined pressure of school and adjusting to life with step-parents and assumed it would pass.

It didn’t and by the time Beth was diagnosed as anorexic she had been starving herself for months. Her mother describes the disease as a demon and one which she saw consuming her only child.

While Beth said she wanted help, attempts to persuade her to keep a food diary to highlight just how little she was eating failed and despite consultations with psychiatrist and a month-long stay in hospital the weight continued to fall off.

The breakthrough finally came when Beth secured a place at a residential clinic set up specifically to deal with those suffering from eating disorders. By then she weighed just 4st, but by following a strict routine of daily meals each week she began to put on a couple of pounds

For the last six months Beth has managed to maintain her ideal weight. The once hollow cheekbones of her face have filled out again and she no longer spends hours each day calculating calories, however she also knows that the anorexia could return. It’s a situation thousands of families find themselves in each year and the age of the sufferers appear to be getting younger.

According to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, more than 2,000 children have received hospital treatment for eating disorders in the past three years – 600 of them were 13 or less and 98 were aged between five and seven.

The statistics paint a worrying picture of the grip eating disorders now have on the very young, but according to one support charity the reality is actually far worse.

“These figures only account for those youngsters who were treated in hospital and there are many more who are either being seen by the GP, a specialist clinic or still in denial about the disease,” says Francis Burrows, head of services at the eating disorders charity B-eat.

“In fact, there are 1.6 million people suffering from diseases like anorexia and bulimia and the reality is that they can affect anyone of any age and background.

“However, these details of hospital admissions do highlight just how much young children are at risk.

“An eating disorder is often a symptom of an underlying problem whether that be bullying, parents splitting up or the pressure of exams. These are children who for whatever reason are suffering from low self-esteem and it is only by getting to the heart of what is going on in their heads that the road to recovery can begin.”

While the culture of glossy celebrity magazines and the practising of air brushing already stick-thin models has been cited as a contributing cause of eating disorders, there has yet been any hard proof.

“We believe much of the coverage regarding children and eating disorders is misleading,” says Dr Rachel Byrant-Waight, head of the Eating and Feeding Disorders Service at Great Ormond Street Hospital. “Models and other society influences are, in our experience, rarely a contributory factor to the development of eating and weight difficulties in young children.”

However, while the jury may be out on the exact cause of eating disorders in the very young, their effect has been well documented.

“I was part of the group that put together the Government guidelines on the treatment of eating disorders in 2004,” says Susan Ringwood, chief executive of B-eat. “Back then we said people with these diseases were as young as eight, but we are now seeing even younger sufferers coming forward.

“It is unlikely that an eating disorder will result from a single cause. It is much more likely to be a combination of factors and many people just simply feel that for whatever reason they are not good enough.

“We do hear of some incredibly tragic stories of young people who fall into the grip of these diseases, but we also hear of the success stories. While anorexia can be a difficult disease to beat, part of our role is to let people know that even in the most serious of cases, recovery is possible.”

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