Mary-Kate Olsen has had treatment for an eating disorder
Figures released today proved that eating disorder anorexia is becoming more of a problem for UK children as the number of young girls admitted to hospital with the disease has almost doubled in ten years, the Daily Mail reports.
The disease is rumoured to have affected many celebrities including Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Victoria Beckham and Hollywood star Mary Kate Olsen has even been admitted to rehab for treatment for anorexia. Now it seems that even children are been affected by the disorder.
Kids as young as nine years old have been rushed to hospital after becoming seriously ill after starving themselves.
In the UK about 1.1 million people suffer from an eating disorder but it is rare for them to become so ill that they are hospitalised. However the figures show that the number of admissions among girls under 16 rose 80% from 256 in 1999/97 to 462 - in 2006/07. That included 18 11 year olds and ten 10-year-olds. The was a rise in admissions of under 10s from one in 1996/97 to five in 2006/07.
Susan Ringwood, chief executive of the UK eating disorder charity, Beat, told the paper: "We think these figures are very shocking. But we don't know, and the Government doesn't know because the data isn't collected, how many people have a diagnosis of an eating disorder. We can't tell if there's more people actually suffering from an eating disorder in the first place or whether it's just that more are getting admitted to hospital."
The figures also showed that the number of children suffering with bulimia had decreased with 10 girls aged 16 and under admitted to hospital in 2006/07, down from the 26 in 1996/97. A total of 93 girls were admitted for other types of eating disorders in 2006/07, down from 108 in 1996/97.
Conservative health spokesman Anne Milton told the Daily Mail: "These figures are shocking. We are failing to get across to young people today the dangers they face when they abuse food. At one end of the scale we have some frightening statistics on obesity and on the other end of the scale we have many people suffering from this tragic illness."