Eating disorders of daughters are often ignored

Eating disorders of daughters are often ignored by parents

12/12/2011

Scientists at the University of Dresden recently presented their appalling interim review of a study on eating disorders: Many parents do not take their daughters' eating disorders seriously and even ignore them knowingly. About half of the parents of girls diagnosed with an eating disorder even refused a diagnostic interview offered by Dresden psychologists.

Parents react partially repellent to offers of psychologists
For the study, in which a family-based prevention program for anorexia is to be developed, 6,000 questionnaires were sent to over 40 schools in Dresden. The target group were children between the ages of eleven to 17 years and their parents. The questionnaire should be used to determine if there is a risk of an eating disorder. If this is the case, children and parents are offered the opportunity to have a detailed discussion with experts. If there is a suspicion of an increased risk of eating disorders, parents can participate in an internet-based screening program.

Regrettably, only about 25 percent of the questionnaires were filled out. Almost 150 girls find that psychologists have an increased risk of eating disorders and being underweight and have invited those affected and their parents to a conversation. However, 50 percent of the parents did not accept the invitation, in part with very harsh reactions: „I do not have time for that shit. "

More and more children and adolescents are suffering from eating disorders
Prof. Dr. Tilman Fürniss and dr. Annabel Köchling from the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Münster report that about one in five adolescents between eleven and 17 are suspected of having an eating disorder. Clinic director Fürnis explains that today even new-year-olds suffer from eating disorders, whereas a few decades ago mainly young people between the ages of 14 and 16 were affected. In the meantime, about every third girl and every seventh boy between the ages of eleven and seventeen have a reasonable suspicion of a pathological eating disorder.

The clinic director points out in this context that eating disorders should be taken seriously. For example, anorexia causes not only extreme weight loss but also brain mass reduction. „It shrinks by 20 to 30 percent and is completely in some areas the function,“ explains the expert. In addition there are serious effects on the cardiovascular system. (Ag)

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Picture: S. Hofschlaeger