ABC News: Eating Disorders Rising in Pre-Teens: Study
By National medical reporter Sophie Scott
A study has found that younger children are increasingly being diagnosed with eating disorders like anorexia.
Child and adolescent psychiatrist at Sydney's Westmead Children's Hospital, Dr Sloane Madden, studied children under 13 years old with eating disorders.
Dr Madden found children as young as eight years old were being diagnosed with anorexia and she says most children were diagnosed at the age of 11 - and many ended up in hospital.
"At least 50 per cent of the children had severe complications from their starvation," she said.
Read article in full here.
Children As Young As Six Suffering Eating Disorders
By: Thewest.com.au
Australian children as young as six are presenting at hospitals with eating disorders so advanced that almost half require forced feeding to save their lives, a study has found. New data has confirmed that anorexia and starvation are becoming increasingly common among children, with a third of cases seen in under 18-year-olds now occurring in kids under 13. The disease in children is more severe than teenagers and adults because it is being picked up too late, say specialists releasing the data at a psychiatry congress in Melbourne tomorrow.
Australia has, proportionately, more than double the number of extreme cases reported in both the United Kingdom and Canada.
“This is an extremely concerning situation because these kids are very, very unwell,” said lead researcher Dr Sloane Madden, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Sydney's Westmead Children's Hospital.
“We in Australia are much poorer at recognizing this as a problem and getting these children treated.” Read article in full here.------------------
Students Take On A Cause:
byJ.D. GRAVENOR The Gazette, Canada
Speak the truth. Be straight up. Tell it like it is. From a very early age, we are all encouraged to discuss what's on our mind. After all, honesty is the best policy, right?
Well, it's not always that simple. We are also taught the opposite message, that some things you just don't talk about in public.
But sometimes silence can lead to bad things. In the case of eating disorders, a refusal to admit the problem to others can result in serious mental and physical illness - sometimes even in death.
Read article in full here.
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Adam Cresswell, Health editor
A NEW way of tackling anorexia that gives parents the prime role in insisting their child eats properly is winning official backing after promising results at hospitals that have adopted it.
The Maudsley Approach is being piloted by NSW Health in Campbelltown, in southwest Sydney, where health professionals are being asked to use it for new patients seeking treatment for the eating disorder.
If successful, the method - named after the London psychiatric hospital where it was developed in the 1980s - will be rolled out across the state.
The Maudsley Approach is drug-free and allows anorexic adolescents to be cared for at home. Parents are taught how to insist the child eats, and to allow a staged acknowledgment of the child's autonomy as weight and healthy eating patterns are regained.
Studies have shown that two-thirds of adolescent anorexia patients recovered by the end of treatment, and 75 to 90 per cent were of normal weight after five years.
Read article in full here.
Sources:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/28/2257501.htm
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=158&ContentID=75544
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/youthzone/story.html?id=48a5c00d-d168-419d-9e10-6d242e8dcfae
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4745557532710220248
Picture source:www.bigfoto.com
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