05 Dec 2010
Doctors from three hospitals – Singapore General Hospital, National University Hospital and KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital – as well as three psychiatrists in private practice confirmed in a report last week that not only is anorexia nervosa on the rise among teens, it is also afflicting pre-teens as young as eight. Parents of young children should be concerned although the numbers may still be relatively small.
It is no trifling matter that pubescent girls are starving themselves so they may look “perfect”. They may end up with a whole host of health problems and be admitted to hospital. Psychological counselling will be necessary. The quest for perfection, when it becomes extreme, may even lead the patient to take laxatives and drugs that speed up the body’s metabolic rates. The condition can then become fatal. The 1970s singer Karen Carpenter, who literally starved herself to death in 1983, is a cautionary example.
According to one psychiatrist, these pre-teens are perfectionists and superachievers, and tend to come from wealthy families and elite schools. One mother of an eight-year-old anorexic observed that on online chats, eight-, nine-year-olds discuss diet foods and how long they can go without food.
The popular media, in celebrating skinny celebrities, is largely to be blamed for the problem. Its message has given rise to a phenomenon called “social obesity”, which shifts the healthy range of body mass index from 18.5-22.9 to 17-21. Mothers who obsess about their weight and are constantly on a diet do not set a good example.
To combat the problem, the Ministry of Education could perhaps look into working with the Health Promotion Board to arrange regular talks at both primary and secondary schools. Parents and teachers must do their part by watching out for tell-tale signs of the ailment.
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Dept of Psychiatry
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