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According to a new study, more than one in five children worldwide have eating disorders. A serious public health problem, too often underestimated.
According to the latest WHO report, the number of cases of obesity in the world has almost tripled since 1975 and children are not spared.
According to the results of a large meta-analysis published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, 22% of children and adolescents have eating disorders – causing serious medical complications.
Eating disorders: girls more affected
To reach this conclusion, 63,181 children and adolescents between the ages of 6 and 18 were closely examined.
The primary endpoint of this large meta-analysis, comprising 32 studies, was the detection of eating disorders assessed by the SCOFF questionnaire.
Exclusion criteria included: studies conducted with young people diagnosed with physical or mental disorders; studies published before 1999, studies in which data were collected during the pandemic, works based on data from the same surveys in order to avoid duplication and systematic reviews and/or meta-analysis of cases.
After scanning the valid data from this meta-analysis, the researchers then found that 22% of children and adolescents had eating disorders.
The proportion of eating disorders was even higher among girls, and this increased with age.
In addition, the higher the body mass index, the higher the percentage of eating disorders.
“Worrying” figures according to the researchers, who underline the need to set up “eating disorder prevention strategies“.
“Food helps to fill suffering”
Hélia Hakimi-Prévot, author of the book “The truth about obesity” is not surprised by these results.
“Modern society creates and imposes diktats of thinness, while we swim in full “hyper sedentarization”. Children, overweight or obese, therefore feel stigmatized, and start snacking to fill this void, this fear. This phenomenon, nicknamed “Binge eating disorder“can start very early, from childhood, and become more pronounced in adolescence”, reveals the health journalist, before adding “Food is ultimately a tool at hand that allows us to overcome suffering..”
Underdiagnosed eating disorders
Another problem noted in the study: eating disorders can be invisible for years, for many reasons: children may hide their symptoms or simply avoid asking for help because of the shame they feel. and/or ambient stigma.
“In France, there is a real problem of prevention and detection of these disorders. A child who eats compulsively will often hide and develop this disorder out of sight. If parents have their share of responsibility, doctors are also not sufficiently aware of the subject. Pediatricians should routinely ask the child questions about his diet. However, this is unfortunately not the case.“, regrets the expert.