Children, Older Women fallying pray to Eating disorder

Eating disorders, primarily Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia, which were considered as disorder of teenagers have spread their wings and are now found among small children and women who have crossed 60 years.

The study conducted by British Paediatric Surveillance showed some shocking findings. The study was conducted on children under age group 13. It was found that children aged eleven and below were as susceptible to eating disorder as teenagers are. Hundreds of children were to be hospitalized each year due to eating disorder and many were forced into nasal tube feeding or treatment by drug therapy. In one case a kid died due to kidney failure. The smallest child included in the study was just 5 years old.

In another study, Australian researchers at the Innsbruck Medical University studied 475 women in the age group 60-70 years. It was found that most of the older females had wrong perception regarding their body image. They were dissatisfied with the way they looked.

60% of the females were not satisfied with the way they looked. They thought they were fat. And, 40% were diagnosed as having eating disorder.

Dr. Barbara Mangweth-Matzek, the study's lead author said that they had never thought that older women could also develop eating disorders and this is the first study which showed the link between the body image and eating disorders.

Though they showed fewer symptoms of anorexia and it was not full blown disorder but still they were suffering from this fatal disorder. It was seen that though women do age but the once induced feeling of staying thin doesn’t go away with aging but remains there in their ‘minds.’

The researchers said that doctors must be more careful regarding the disorder and keep in mind that it can do affect older women as much as it affects teenagers. Though, in older age some of the symptoms may be due to the illness or the aging like loss of apetite, forgeting etc. so it’s challenging for doctor to understand the root cause.

More research is needed to be done in this field to understand the causes and the ways through which it could be treated.

The study was published in the November issue of International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Earlier it was thought that anorexia was rarely found among females above 25 years. But now we have to change our thinking pattern. Few symptoms of anorexia are feeling tired, headache, don’t eat much and if one does than throw up later, have poor body image, moody, irritable, reserved, poor judgment, fear of becoming fat, exercising more than required, obsessive, follow their own restricted pattern etc. While in Bulimia one often does involve in ‘binge eating’, induced vomiting and abusing laxatives. Both are dangerous form of eating disorders and can be fatal.