According to new NHS figures, twice as many children are being diagnosed with eating disorders compared to eight years ago, with some having to wait more than a year to receive treatment.
It would be a horrific situation for any type of mental disorder. With EDs, there are reasons to view it as particularly dire. As campaigners often emphasize, early intervention is key in achieving the best outcomes for recovery. What, though, might be the impact of receiving a formal diagnosis, only to then be left waiting for months on end?
Treating an ED is complex at the best of times. This is not least because the sufferer’s own relationship to the disorder may not be especially hostile. The condition can be, if not desired, then at least considered part of one’s own identity. The tremendous increase in eating disorder awareness over the past few decades has brought disadvantages in terms of making potential sufferers — adolescent girls in particular — alert to this very particular way of expressing distress.
This is not to suggest the current surge in diagnoses is anything but ‘genuine’ — it is. Nonetheless, as I recall from my own experience of anorexia, it is very hard to pitch ‘ED awareness’ in a way that does not make some aspects of the disorder darkly appealing. We are, it seems, more aware than ever — but have not caught up in terms of investment, prevention or cure.
In the meantime, the effect of diagnosing an eating disorder without being able to offer treatment straight away can be devastating. On a practical level, the moment a child receives an ED diagnosis concerned adults will become extra-invested in monitoring food intake and weight, activities which — however well-meaning — can be deeply counterproductive when undertaken without professional guidance. Added to this is the pressure — as noted by campaigners such as Hope Virgo — on the sufferer to be ‘ill enough’ (that is, thin enough) to need inpatient treatment at all.
A significant gap between diagnosis and intervention risks intensifying the course of the illness, locking the sufferer into the ‘sick person’ role. It can also create unrealistic expectations regarding what treatment might actually involve. ‘I will stop doing this as soon as I get to the top of the waiting list’ becomes yet another way of justifying remaining ill.
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