Shared family meals are crucial in tackling scourge of eating disorders

Eating disorders are not about food, of course. They are misguided attempts to control a frightening and chaotic world, writes Victoria White.

WHENEVER I hear of a young person with an eating disorder I feel a protective rage. I suppose I’m still trying to protect myself as a kid because I was anorexic between the ages of 16 and 18.

I was stick-thin and my hands and feet were often blue. My nails were frail, my skin was bad and I was a chronic insomniac. Every last symptom has gone, friends. Eighty percent of anorexics — 77% of bulimics — recover from their illness, and I am one of the lucky ones.