Anorexia and bulimia among children at record highs

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Nationwide the numbers of children suffering from anorexia and other eating disorders is skyrocketing. 

Anorexia and bulimia in children was unheard of 10 years ago but now is a common sight for physicians.  

Dr. Eric Yancy has practiced for more than 30 years. He says he has seen a steady increase in eating disorders. In fact, the number of children under the age of 12 hospitalized for anorexia and bulimia has risen 119 percent between 1999 and 2006.

“The overt danger of malnutrition — basically they are iron deficient. They can run into calcium problems, other types of absorbent nutrition problems, but also there is still the underlying psychological disorder or concern that mainly lead to other forms of distractive behavior,”said Dr. Yancy.

Children at the highest risk for developing these disorders often already suffer from anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, or have verbally expressed concerns about their weight.  

“You have to be very concerned about the child who is either obsessed with food but yet still seems to be losing weight or the child who wears extremely heavy clothing in warmer weather to try to hide their bodies,” commented Dr. Yancy. 

Diagnosing and treating the disorder early increases the chances of beating the disease. 

“If we can get these 9-, 10-, 11 year-olds early on we can sometimes reverse some of that psychological concern, but the more you get into it the body image situation kind of takes over and it becomes a part of who you are, and it is just much harder to get anything done at that point,” remarked Dr. Yancy.