According to a new study, teens who tip the scales at what are considered
normal weights for their ages and heights may still suffer from eating
disorders.
by John
Tyburski
Copyright © Daily
Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
Not
rail-thin? A teen may still be stuck in a serious eating disorder. Researchers
report that dangerous eating behaviors may be present in teens that show no
indication of a problem through their body weights. In fact, they found an almost
6-fold rise in teen patients who were at normal weights but exhibited every
other indicator for anorexia.
Eating
disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia can cause loss of body weight to
the point that the patient appears abnormally thin. However, being underweight
is not a necessary criterion for diagnosing these diseases.
“Emaciated
bodies are the typical image portrayed in the media of patients with
restricting eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa,” said lead author
Melissa Whitelaw, a clinical specialist dietitian at The Royal Children’s
Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. “This paper highlights that it is not so much
about the weight but the weight loss that can lead to a serious eating
disorder. The complications of malnutrition can occur at any weight.”
The report was published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
In the study, 99 teens aged 12 to 19 were assessed for “eating disorders not
otherwise specified,” or EDNOS-Wt, which includes the presence of anorexia
symptoms and absence of underweight. Only eight percent had EDNOS-Wt in 2005
compared with 47 percent in 2009.
“I was
surprised to see how much it increased,” Whitelaw said. “I was also surprised
at how similar they were not only physically but also psychologically.
Everything about them was anorexia except that they don’t look really skinny.”
Experts
caution that by looking only at body weight, serious eating disorders in teens
may be overlooked.
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