Anorexia victims left to starve in 'twilight zone'
By Caroline McClatchey, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:35am GMT 04/02/2007
Eating disorders fail to receive the attention they deserve because the Government does not know how many people suffer from them, campaigners believe. They say the problem is being relegated to the "twilight zone" with nine in 10 sufferers feeling they have no one to turn to for help. The estimate of 1.1 million sufferers is based on figures collected in 1990. |
The Eating Disorders Association, which relaunches tomorrow under the name of beat, asked for Medical Research Council funding to discover how many people suffer from conditions such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, but was turned down 18 months ago.
Susan Ringwood, its chief executive, said: "I don't know how the Department of Health can plan for services if they don't know how many people have this condition."
Ian Gibson, the Labour MP for Norwich North, said: "The Government doesn't give the resources that are needed - there are thousands of parents and children crying out for help."
Mr Gibson said eating disorders and mental health problems were in the "twilight zone" of the health service and accused GPs of being unprepared to devote the time to deal with the problem.
New research by beat, involving 600 people aged 14 to 25 who suffer from an eating disorder, indicates that 92 per cent of those with an eating disorder feel they have no one to turn to for help and just 1 per cent feel they could confide in their parents.
Lynn Crilly, 42, from Esher, Surrey, whose daughter Sam, 15, has fought a three-year battle with anorexia, explained how the disorder placed a strain not only on sufferers, but also on their friends and families.
"You are desperate," she said. "You are watching your child starve herself to death but nothing seems to work.
"It had a huge impact on the family because everything revolved around Sam."
Sam, whose weight dropped to 5st 6lb, but now weighs 8st, said: "I was introverted and didn't talk to many people. I have come through a stronger person."
Beat hopes that its new name will inspire more people to seek help. "We wanted to have a name that could be a message of hope as well as a call to action," said Miss Ringwood.
Dr Sarah Jarvis, the women's health spokesman for the Royal College of General Practitioners, accepted that the provision of treatment was inadequate but blamed a shortage of resources.
"It's not that we don't want to deal with it," she said. "The waiting times for therapy are obscene."
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "We cannot get a figure because some sufferers are treated as out-patients, some go to their GPs and some go private. And some won't go for help because they don't think they have a problem."