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Awareness of eating disorders in children and teenagers

New research shows how there has been a raised awareness of eating disorders in children. Here you’ll find support, advice, and warning signs to look out for.

A rise in eating disorders

Many of us have turned to Google for our health worries or questions. We found that parents turned to Google for their concerns, especially eating disorder support. There has been a rise in searches on Google for eating disorder awareness, affecting children, teenagers and young people.

So we asked Bupa mental health advisers Harriet Finlayson and Danielle Panton their expert advice. On this page, they tell us the warning signs of an eating disorder and offer guidance for recovery and self care. They also provide advice on how to talk to children about eating disorders.

Teenagers and children are particularly vulnerable because they re still acquiring the coping skills and life experience they need to build resilience.

Types of eating disorders

While it’s normal to change your eating habits every now and again, it can become a problem if food and eating feel like they’re taking over: that’s when a disorder can develop.

Eating disorders are complex conditions that cause people to develop severely disrupted eating habits. For parents, it’s important to be aware of the different types of eating disorder because they’re most common in teenagers aged 13 to 17. There are lots of different eating disorders, each with unique symptoms. Some of the more common disorders are listed below.

Many more people are searching for help with eating disorders

We compared how many people are using Google to look for support with eating disorders in September 2024, compared with October 2021.

Eating disorder awareness: warning signs to watch out for

Whether you’re concerned about yourself or someone you love, it’s important to recognise the potential signs of an eating disorder. For a parent, seeing your child struggle with eating problems or disorders can be very upsetting.

How to talk to your children about eating disorders

Eating disorder recovery

With the right eating disorder support and guidance, it’s possible to regain health and wellbeing.

Find the right treatment

It’s crucial to find the treatment that works best for you, as it can help you develop healthy, balanced eating patterns in the long term.

An important part of finding suitable treatment is first speaking to your doctor. They may be able to refer you to specialist eating disorder support for both your child and your family.

There are specialist charities that can help. You can find details for Beat, the UK's eating disorder charity, at the bottom of this page.

Young Minds, the mental health charity, also has lots of content around anorexia and other eating disorders.

Watch out for triggers

It’s important that your child learns how to cope and manage any triggers that arise in their everyday life. As part of their support network, be mindful that topics around food, body image and dieting may naturally come up in conversation. Where you can, avoid talking about these topics at mealtimes.

It’s critical that your child finds a coping strategy to ease any discomfort. For example, if you can identify the events, people and situations that trigger negative emotions, you can help to avoid that trigger or prepare a way to handle it in future.

Encourage a healthy relationship with food

Even though food itself isn’t the problem with an eating disorder, developing a healthier relationship with food is an important step to recovery. Here are our tips for reducing mealtime anxiety for everyone:

  • Prepare for meals by letting the family know when food will be served.
  • When you’re eating a meal, divert attention by talking about the events of the day, or what’s been on TV.
  • Reduce added pressure on your child by taking greater control of their food; for example, by offering less choice.
  • Distracting your child after eating could reduce the urge for excessive exercise or purging (vomiting or using laxatives). So plan to do something afterwards, like watching a moving, playing a board game or going out.

Eating disorder support and information from Bupa's experts

How Bupa can support you with eating disorders

Helpful external resources

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