Doctors at the Westmead Children’s Hospital in NSW have told the ABC that child admissions for eating disorders, particularly anorexia, have tripled in the past decade.
Children as young as eight are being admitted, some of whose lives are at risk.
Dr Sloane Madden says children’s ideas about what constitutes a good body shape are cemented at a young age.
“By the age of 12 most children have their ideas about what’s a desirable weight and shape,” he said.
“So children at that age see being thin as being equated with successful, hardworking, and when you couple that with the message that overweight and obesity is bad and a
focus on losing weight, that really is a potentially dangerous combination.”
The head of the hospital’s adolescent medicine department, Susan Towns, suspects the media is to blame.
Ross Gibson and Carl Warner
John Cattapan