Child health experts call today for “urgent action” to improve the detection of eating disorders in children.
It follows research carried out by University College London Institute of Child Health that revealed that detection is geared at adolescents, despite it affecting about three in every 100,000 children under 13.
Lead researcher Dr Dasha Nicholls, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, says for a minority of children it may be the start of a severe and enduring illness, with death rates comparable to some forms of leukaemia.
“Unfortunately, many eating disorder services are aimed specifically at adolescents. Childhood eating disorders are not quick or easy to treat,” she adds.
Dr Nicholls used the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a new child and adolescent psychiatry surveillance system to identify new cases of eating disorders in children aged between five and 13.
Over 14 months, there were 208 cases of early-onset eating disorders identified, 82 per cent of which were diagnosed in girls.
Of those 37 per cent were diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, 43 per cent were classified as having an unspecified eating disorder, one per cent were diagnosed with bulimia nervosa or binge eating, and 19 per cent had symptoms of disordered eating, such as food avoidance.
Half of them admitted to hospital for treatment.
All children were followed up after one year and it was that 130 of the 208 youngsters (73 per cent) had improved, but 11 were worse and 18 were unchanged.
They also found that 44 per cent of the children had a close family member with a history of mental illness, while one fifth had a history of early feeding problems.
Dr Nicholls says this supports the idea that family history of mental illness and early feeding problems may be risk factors in the development of early-onset eating disorders.
“Our study shows there is an urgent need to consider the needs of children with eating disorders separately and not simply lower the age range of existing adolescent services,” she adds.
Nicholls DE, Lynn R and Viner RM. Childhood eating disorders: British national surveillance study. British Journal of Psychiatry 2011; 198: 295-301
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