Four-year-olds seek treatment for eating disorders

CHILDREN as young as four are presenting with eating disorders, according to the head of a private clinic which specialises in recovery from anorexia, bulimia and emotional overeating.

Marie Campion, who founded and is the director of the Marino Therapy Centre, said the age of presentation was getting younger and demand for services is increasing. She said the youngest cases she had seen were in children aged four and five and the oldest up to 60.

“In a child that young, we would work with the family. It is amazing what can develop at an unconscious level. Young people are absorbing all the negativity around them. They are being taught about food far too early, what is good and what is bad and that is extremely destructive.”