Eating Disorders in Children and Teenagers

Children, in particular teenagers naturally become concerned about how they look. Some begin to feel self conscious about their shape and weight. Children’s bodies change during puberty along with their hormones and general outlook on life. They face new social pressures such as the attraction to the opposite sex.

For some children, the concerns about their weight turns into an obsession, causing them to have considerable weight fluctuation, damage to their body functions and a general interference with their day to day life.

Millions of children develop an eating disorder along with an abnormal attitude towards food. Their behaviour becomes somewhat secretive and peculiar wherever food is concerned. Eating disorders usually begin about 11 to 13 years of age, is more common with girls, although boys do also suffer from eating disorders. Many children and teenagers are successful at hiding such disorders from their family and friends for many years, and suffer in silence.

An eating disorder may be avoided if you nurture your child’s self esteem and promote a healthy attitude towards nutrition and appearance. If you believe that your child has developed an eating disorder it is important that you approach your child and ensure that they receive the appropriate medical care.

An eating disorder is when a person becomes self critical, harbours negative thoughts and feelings about food and their body weight that disrupts with their normal bodily function and daily activities. Those suffering from anorexia nervosa starve themselves in order to be thin and lose an excessive amount of weight. Bulimia is a different type of eating disorder where the suffering has weight fluctuations due to the urge to binge eat and vomiting. Both disorders involve compulsive exercise.

To treat an eating disorder, one must focus on helping the child cope with their eating behaviours and establish a new way of thinking about food and nutrition. Treatments usually include nutritional counselling, medical supervision and therapies. Some children who are severely malnourished require hospitalisation.

Treatment for anorexia nervosa essentially requires good nutritional management. Unfortunately there is little information available for professionals and carers when treating this serious illness.
You should always remember nutrition by its psychological context. Those who suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia require physical and nutritional assessment. Attempts to ensure weight gain that are aggressive and early in treatment can potentially be dangerous.
Following the initial treatment of hypoglycaemia, electrolyte disturbance, stabilisation of the cardiovascular function and dehydration, a patient’s nutrient deficiencies must be stabilised before correcting the body’s composition.

Nutrition therapy is vital during the recovery process. A qualified nutritionist should discuss current food intake and its adequacy to maintain health. During counselling, a patient will also discuss food restrictions, their self imposed rules regarding food and their food restrictions.
The nutrition therapy will include discussion on separating the food intake and behaviours that are weight related along with feelings and emotional issues.