Concerns about High Rates of Eating Disorders among Young Children!   

It's so sad to see the way socitey influences our children. Unfortunantely anorexia & bulima are not the only eating disorders afflicting our children. Like you stated binge-eating also is a eating disorder.

Wheather the eating disorder causes them to lose or gain excessive weight, it's not healthy. Exercise is healthy, but not when taken to the extremes the article talks about.

It is a national epedemic & everyone needs to be reminded of this constantly.

Thanx for posting this. :)

i believe teens end up with eating disorders because of other kids make it so difficult for them to try and fit in.so they starve themselves so they fit in and end up with other health problems as well.i dont understand it though.i know when i was in school their was never this much pressure on kids to fit it we never starved ourselves.

There are various contributory causes of eating disorders and often several of these may act in combination.
The ability to distinguish between hunger, satisfaction and other feelings is learned when one is very young. More . Faulty upbringing can interfere with this. The effect is often not noticed until later in life. More .
Eating disorders often arise when a person tries to reduce to an abnormally low weight. The unnatural slim ideal may be therefore a contributory cause of eating disorders. More .
Many people with eating disorders are not aware of their physical feelings of hunger and satisfaction. Thus, they lack a natural control of their eating. Such people will easier be pulled into eating disorders, where they use eating to conceal feelings and escape from constructive problem solutions. More .
Both overeating and fasting can stimulate the reward centre in the brain. Eating disorders therefore function in the same way as alcoholism and drug addiction. The same personality traits which increase the risk of alcoholism and drug addiction also increase the risk of eating disorders. More.
The personality traits which increase the risk of eating disorders are partly hereditary. Addictive problems or affective disorders (depression, etc.) are more common among relatives. More.
Some of the personality traits involved are: a tendency to please others and a low ability to assert one's own needs; a need to reduce unsettling feelings of anxiety, depression and low self-confidence; perfectionism and problems with impulse control. More about personality.
Eating disorders are more common among women and those who are affected by social attitudes and body ideals and who also lack the ability of following their own feelings and needs. More .
Children of overweight parents, and parents with an exaggerated interest in body shape, more often get eating disorders. Also, demands from the family and insecure family circumstances increase the risk.

This is scary information, but eating disorders are a problem for pre-teens. I think that teens and pre-teens need to be shown that you can manage your weight through proper diet and exercise and that you don't have to go without food. You could also tell them that you actually gain weight when you do with out food because your body is trying to make up for what you are not providing it with. Looking like the walking dead is not pretty.