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Children's Eating Disorders: Can Occur at Different Ages

Children aged fourteen to fifteen begin to suffer from eating disorders and this may peak at the age of eighteen. Girls in their adolescent years find themselves suffering from children’s eating disorder and the incidence among boys also seems to be on the rise.

Anorexia causes the child to experience an overwhelming fear of becoming overweight and leads them to force them to become thin with a resulting restriction in intake of calories which is perceived as being the major cause of being underweight. The child may also suffer from bulimia nervosa which causes them to lose control and take to binge eating, followed by purging.

The root cause of children’s eating disorder seems to be genetic and is more prevalent in children having first-degree relatives who have had eating disorders as well. Some competitive activities such as ballet, skating, athletics as well as fashion modeling are other factors that may be attributed to causing children’s eating disorder. In addition, children’s eating disorder is more likely to occur in children who have a past history of physical or sexual abuse.

A common thread that points to children’s eating disorder is that of the child having a low self-esteem as also not being satisfied with their bodies. Besides this factor, the child may also be suffering from eating disorder if he or she has had recent weight loss, fears gaining weight, shows purging behaviors, has a distorted view of their own body size or shape, is preoccupied with thinking about food, calories and weight, shows restrictive eating patterns and likes to eat alone. These are just some of the few factors that indicate that the children’s eating disorder has struck the child.

To remedy the children’s eating disorder, one should get the child seen by a physician without any delay in case there are symptoms that point to the child having eating disorders. The doctor may perform a nutritional assessment as also evaluate the child for depression signs.

The doctor should be able to rule out other possible causes of weight loss before proceeding further and may not consider psychiatric disorders, drug abuse, and inflammatory bowel disease as being symptomatic of children’s eating disorder. An ailment such as anorexia may cause the child to faint from low blood pressure or have electrolyte disorders or even be unable to tolerate cold, constipation and show signs of depleted energy levels.