An Increase of Eating Disorders in Young Girls

Are you worried that a friend or family member might have an eating disorder that’s gone on for some time now? Scared of the health effects that come along with an eating disorder? Learn more about this condition in young girls.

According to an article at ottawacitizen.com, “ A Family’s Struggle with an Eating Disorder”

“At 10, the Ottawa girl’s weight loss was so pronounced, her state of dehydration and vital signs so worrisome, that her doctor sent her directly to emergency at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. There she stayed for weeks while her alarmed family remained by her bedside.

“It is heartbreaking seeing your child on an intravenous drip with a heart monitor on and having her blood pressure checked every few hours,” mother Michaela Huard said this week, more than eight years after her family’s nightmare began.

Huard’s daughter was suffering from an eating disorder that researchers from the CHEO’s eating disorder research team are among the first to better understand.

Despite the extreme weight loss, Huard’s daughter wasn’t a typical eating disorder patient. She was too young, for one, and she didn’t have the body image issues found in patients with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. Huard said her daughter knew she was too thin, but had an overwhelming fear of throwing up and a great difficulty swallowing anything, symptoms that developed after she was bullied at school. As a result, she was slowly starving.

Huard said it was painful to watch her daughter becoming thinner. “Following your daughter in a hospital gown that is about to fall off her because she is so tiny and being able to count every vertebra in her back is very scary.” To read the entire article click here.

To learn how Barbara Cox can help family and friends with an eating disorder, contact ABC Nutrition Services at 775-329-0505 or visit ABCNutritionServices.com.