
I was admitted to Westmead Hospital on 16 December 2010.
The summer holidays had just begun. The sun was shining. Christmas was just around the corner.
Instead of wrapping gifts I was on bedrest attached to a 24 hour liquid feed. Instead of decorating the house I was living in a ward with ten other people suffering from anorexia. I didn’t set foot outside the hospital walls for seven days.
I had just turned 14.
I was reminded of this day when I went to get a coffee from my local bakery this weekend and saw the front page of the Daily Telegraph.
My heart sank as I read the full story.
According to The Daily Telegraph “the Children’s Hospital at Westmead’s Eating Disorder Service is reporting a fourfold increase in hospital admissions over the past 15 years as well as a tenfold increase in outpatient consultations.”
And it gets worse.
The age of admission is getting younger and younger with some hospitals admitting children as young as six.
These children, who should still be playing with Lego and swinging off the monkey bars, are being fed through tubes. Their little bodies, which haven’t gone through puberty yet, are being starved of vital nutrients.
Watch Demi Lovato talk honestly about her eating disorder. (Post continues after video.)
The article attributes the rise in hospitalisation and the age of sufferers to the obsession with fad diets and social media. I couldn’t agree more.