This is an illness most people associate with teenage girls, but the insidious spread of eating disorders can be found in people as young as seven and as old as 70. Type ‘eating disorders’ into google and the statistics can be frightening.
This is an illness most people associate with teenage girls, but the insidious spread of eating disorders can be found in people as young as seven and as old as 70. Type ‘eating disorders’ into google and the statistics can be frightening.
At the time of writing this article:
More people die of anorexia than any other psychiatric disorder – including depression or schizophrenia (ref: Professor Stephen Touyz, director of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sydney). Research by Newspoll indicated one in 20 women admit to having suffered from an eating disorder, while one in four people know someone suffering from an eating disorder. The number of men reporting dissatisfaction with their bodies more than doubled since 1972 and again in 1997. Perhaps it’s no surprise then that the incidence of binge eating disorders is the same in men as in woman.
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Statistics sourced from the Eating Disorder Foundation of Victoria website.