Eating

ABOUT

It is common for youth to have mild eating problems such as overeating due to stress, keeping poor nutritional habits, and trying food fads. However, sometimes the urge to eat less or more spirals out of control. Children develop eating disorders when they become preoccupied with food and overly worried about their weight or shape. Often times, these youth use food and the control of food in an attempt to deal with emotions and feelings that seem over-whelming to them. Yet such behaviors can cause serious physical and emotional damage, harming the youth’s self-esteem and sense of ability and control.

Children may experience one of three types of eating disorders:

Anorexia Nervosa: extreme thinness and refusal to keep a healthy weight
Bulimia Nervosa: eating large amounts of food in a small time (bingeing), followed by efforts to not gain weight (purging behaviors such as vomiting or using laxatives)
Binge-Eating Disorder: loss of control with eating (bingeing without purging)

The causes of eating disorders are not exactly known, but are thought to be a mix of psychological (e.g., low self-esteem, lack of control in life, emotional problems), interpersonal (e.g., troubled relationships, history of being teased about weight, difficulty expressing emotion, history of abuse), social (e.g., cultural pressures to be thin), and biological (e.g., brain differences, eating disorders running in families) factors. Parents who notice signs of eating problems should ask their child’s pediatrician for a referral to a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Eating disorders are serious and can quickly become life-threatening without early treatment.

WHAT A PARENT WOULD NOTICE IN THEIR KEIKI

Children with Anorexia Nervosa may show some of the following signs:

Belief that they are fat despite being extremely skinny
Strong fear of gaining weight
Extremely picky eating (e.g., very small portions of certain foods)
Perfectionistic and high achieving
Extreme dieting or exercise
Irritable, moody or depressed
Physical signs: dry skin, weak hair and nails, growth of fine hairs all over the body, feeling cold or tired all the time, low blood pressure and pulse, constipation, muscle weakness, and no menstrual periods in girls

Children with Bulimia Nervosa may show some of the following signs:

Usually normal or slightly overweight, go up and down in weight
Strong fear of gaining weight and unhappy with their body
Often eat large amounts of food with a feeling of no control (binging)
Attempts to lose weight by extreme dieting or exercising, vomiting, using laxatives, or not eating (purging), which is often done secretly due to feeling disgust or shame
Physical signs: sore throat, swollen glands in neck, tooth decay, stomach problems, and dehydration

Children with Binge-Eating Disorder show signs of binging found in Bulimia Nervosa, but do not purge and are often overweight.

FACTS

Eating disorders usually appear during teen years, but can also start in childhood
As many as 1 in 10 girls suffer from an eating disorder
Although girls are more likely to experience eating problems, boys can also suffer from the same challenges
Children with eating disorders often have other problems such as depression, anxiety, or drug and alcohol abuse
Long term risks include damage to the heart and brain, organ failure, inability to get pregnant, and heart attack.
People with Anorexia Nervosa are 18 times more likely to die early

VIDEO FOR PARENTS ABOUT CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Treating Childhood Obesity - Dr. David Janicke, Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florida.