Doctors warn against dangerous stomach trends

Teenagers check their ideal weight in risky internet challenges
Whether "Thigh Gap" or the "Belly Button Challenge": Again this summer, numerous weight loss trends will be spread on the Internet, which are addressed primarily to young girls. Kathrin Sevecke from the Innsbruck University Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry warns against dangerous posts and videos on channels like YouTube. These could lead to eating disorders, of which in Austria alone about three percent of eleven to 17 year olds are already affected.

Starving often starts in the spring
Just in time for the summer season, the media landscape is flooded every year by countless reports on the subject of weight loss. Especially adolescents feel quickly under pressure and confused when completely distorted ideals of beauty such as the "perfect bikini figure" are conveyed. As a result, starvation often begins in the spring, and in late summer there will be an accumulation of acute cases, Kathrin Sevecke said, according to a press release from the news agency "APA" at a press conference earlier this week.

The current lean trends can be a serious health risk. (Image: Photographee.eu/fotolia.com)

According to this summer, trends such as "Thigh Gap" announced, which is concerned with the fact that closed legs as large as possible gap between the inner sides of the thighs. Another questionable ideal is suggested by the so-called "Belly Button Challenge". Here, the arm should be looped around the back and touched with the hand in front of the navel. Whoever fails to do so is supposedly too fat - a dangerous and nonsensical message. But more and more young girls want to "belong" and present the supposed success on Instagram, Facebook and Co.

Before another task, the girls, who are usually very thin from the very start, are placed at the "Collarbone Challenge". Here, as many coins as possible are to be stacked on the looming collarbone, whereby the followers follow a simple formula: the more coins, the thinner and more attractive someone is.

Three out of every hundred people affected by eating disorders
"All these questionable trends have in common that they can promote, amplify or trigger eating disorders," said Seville's warning. These are already widespread in Austria, three out of every hundred people are struggling with diseases such as anorexia or bulimia. Especially children and adolescents would put themselves under pressure earlier and more frequently: "Forty percent of eleven to 17-year-old normal or underweight persons are dissatisfied with their bodies. Half of the young people in Central Europe already have at least one diet behind them, "says Sevecke.

Social environment must take responsibility
A big problem would be that sufferers in most cases would go to a clinic too late and accordingly would already be seriously injured. It is just an early detection important to avoid a chronic course of the disease, the expert explains. Therefore, "medical attention should be sought at the very first sign", advises the child and adolescent psychiatrist. In addition, the social environment must feel responsible. Parents, teachers, the family doctor, but also friends or siblings should therefore act on the first warning signals such as a rapid weight loss or the refusal of eating in society, "the claim of the doctor. (No)