Eating illnesses growing

By RENEE KIRIONA

The number of New Zealand children suffering the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia is increasing - and their average age is dropping.

Five years ago, the average age of people diagnosed with anorexia and bulimia was 14, but it has dropped to 11, according to Roger Mysliwiec, clinical director of Auckland Eating Disorder Service (AEDS).



The service has 200 patients referred to it each year. Treatment includes counselling and drug treatment. Most are female teenagers, who can need treatment for as long as five years. Anorexics starve themselves and bulimics deliberately vomit after eating.

Carol Drew, a counsellor and spokeswoman for the National Eating Disorder Association, has worked with anorexics as young as 11 and 12. "I found one boy who had been diagnosed with bulimia because he wanted to make the school rugby team."



There was little funding available in New Zealand to research the disorders in detail, she said, making it difficult to determine exactly how many people were affected.

" ... Funding for it is put on the back burner because sufferers are not viewed as a danger to the public."

The last thorough surveys on eating disorders date back to the mid-1990s. Officials from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and the Ministry of Health said there were no policies being developed to battle the life-threatening disorders.

If more attention was not paid, New Zealand risked following in the footsteps of Australia, said Mrs Drew. Eating disorders had become the third-biggest health problem among teenagers aged 12 to 18 there.

In the past year AEDS had referred four serious anorexia cases to the child and family unit at Starship hospital. Dr Mysliwiec said these were children who did not respond to counselling.