Children as young as 5 hospitalized for eating disorders

We know there’s clearly something wrong with society when five-year-olds are being admitted into hospitals for anorexia.

Over the last three years, a total of 98 kids aged five to seven were admitted for eating disorders in the UK. An additional 99 aged eight and nine were admitted over the same period.

An even more shocking 1,900 pre-teens aged ten to 15 were also hospitalized for eating disorders. What’s scary is that this is the statistics for only the most severe cases – children whose lives are in danger due to eating disorders.

Another survey done by YMCA discovered that nearly 50% of girls are on a diet before they turn 14.

It was also found that nearly one in seven would consider taking slimming pills and that one in 20 would take laxatives.

Experts are pointing their fingers at the media for the rise in kids obsessed with being skinny. Many of these patients idolize the beautiful celebrities seen on TV screens and magazines. In hopes of becoming equally as gorgeous, kids result to starving themselves or force puking.

Said Rosi Prescott, chief executive of the YMCA: “Young people are trying to make themselves look as appealing as possible and they are looking up to these celebrities and models as references, even though many are not real because they have been airbrushed.

Girls in particular are most likely to develop an unhealthy relationship with food. A lot of young girls have the misconception that being a ‘size zero’ would mean getting acceptance from their friends.

Also, many young girls struggle to accept their changing bodies. According to Susan Ringwood, Chief Executive of eating disorders charity Beat, many young girls are terrified of their developing curves when they hit puberty that they starve themselves to keep their child-like figures.

Ringwood said, “The ideal figure promoted for women these days is that of a girl, not an adult women. Girls see the pictures in magazines of extremely thin women and think that is how they should be.”

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