Teens reveal what they wish they knew before developing eating disorders

Bella was just 11 years old when she was diagnosed as having an eating disorder. Here, she speaks about what she wish she had been told back then. WARNING: TRIGGERS

Two Queensland teenagers are warning parents to be educated on eating disorders while exposing the harms of unrealistic beauty standards plastered on social media.

High school students Tia, 17, and Bella, 15, shared their experiences of an eating disorder and their journeys to recovery in a new podcast produced by QUT and Queensland Children’s Health.

LISTEN TO PART OF THE PODCAST IN THE MEDIA PLAYER ABOVE

Tia’s eating disorder coincided with her starting to use social media and said one sign people could be slipping into disordered eating was an obsession with health.

“The internal kind of like signals would be that point of when good intentions, like you can start off as just being concerned with your overall health or you know, just wanting to be more physically fit,” she said.

“But it’s kind of that point when those good intentions become excuses or a lot more serious. And especially those thoughts of why don’t I look like them? Why is my body like this? … or just that hatred or dissatisfaction with how you look.”

The In Full Bloom podcast explores misconceptions about what eating disorders look like, including that less than six per cent of people with an eating disorder are medically underweight.

The average age of onset for anorexia is 16 to 17 years, although more younger children are becoming affected, with children as young as seven meeting criteria for anorexia nervosa.

Bella encouraged any young person struggling with thoughts of body dissatisfaction or disordered eating to reach out to parents, teachers or support services like Kids Helpline and the Butterfly Foundation.

“When I was diagnosed I was 11. So I was really young. I was still maturing … I didn’t know much but I just would have loved to have heard that this can ruin your life,” she said.

“It can take away every single little thing in your life that matters to you. And just throw it away.”

She believes that having people around her who were better educated in what eating disorders are and how to support someone could have helped sooner.

Tia said young people needed to be aware of how filtered and curated social media is.

“I’d just gotten social media at that time (of diagnosis) and I was exposed to all these different, you know, these models and it’s just been so romanticised in our culture and I was

just subconsciously comparing myself to them like to these me like just a pre-teen comparing myself to these like women in their mid 20s.,” she said.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said she was amazed at the girls’ honesty and hoped everyone would take the 20 minutes to listen to their story to learn about the warning signs.

“I think the biggest message out of the podcast is about hope, that there are people that can help and that you can recover from eating disorder,” she said.

Ms Fentiman said the growing problem of eating disorders across all age groups had her very concerned.

“I think we don’t talk about it enough and there’s not a lot of awareness in the community about the signs for young people who may have eating disorders and how to have conversations with young people to prevent eating disorders and have good conversations about healthy body image,” she said.

“I think social media has a huge role to play in the message we’re sending young people and in particular, young women.”

Children’s Health Queensland’s Eating Disorders Program medical director Dr Salvatore Catania said the podcast provided a valuable tool to educate not just young people but parents, carers, clinicians who wanted to better understand the perspectives of teenagers in recovery from an eating disorder.

“We know 25 per cent or less of individuals with an eating disorder actually get treatment and support,” Dr Catania said.

In Full Bloom is available free on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

FOR HELP: If you or anyone you know needs help or support for an eating disorder or concerns about body image, call Butterfly Foundation National Helpline on 1800 334 673

Or visit eatingdisordersqueensland.org.au.

(Tia and Bella are pseudonyms)