‘Unprecedented increase’ in child eating disorders during lockdown
Eating disorder services have recorded “an unprecedented increase” in child patients during lockdown and cases are “increasing in severity”, a new Scottish Government report has said.
The study called for emergency funding to tackle the increased number of young people with eating disorders, pointing to an 86 per cent rise in referrals since 2019.
Some health board areas have reported a hike of 280 per cent. Meanwhile, the report warned of a “postcode lottery” with a variability in support services across the country.
The Scottish Eating Disorder Services review stated that eating disorders“thrive on isolation” and have the highest mortalityrate of all mental illnesses.
The report said the government needs to create a public health strategy for Scotland “that makes eating disorders prevention everyone’s business”.
The document says: “The Scottish Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) eating disorder leads have reported an unprecedented increase in the number and severity of children and young people presenting with eating disorders. This increase in number and severity has also resulted in an increase in adolescent psychiatric admissions.”
It added: “Eating disorders thrive on isolation. Services across the country have seen increased numbers of referrals of people with eating disorders since the start of the pandemic, following a brief downturn in presentations during the initial
lock down. we are seeing people present later and significantly more physically unwell.”
The report said two of the regional adolescent in-patient units said there had been a 220 per cent increase in paediatric admissions.
The document added that UK eating disorder charity beat saw an increase in calls from Scotland between april and october last year of 162 per cent.
Last year, mental health minister clare h aug hey announced
that eating disorder services would be subject to a national review, designed to assess and improve support for people living with an eating disorder.
In addition to extra funding, the reports aida National Eatingdisorder network should be established and funded by the Scottish Government, while a “lived experience panel” should be set up and run alongside an Implementation Group.
Separate figures yesterday showed the ratio of teachers
for youngsters with additional needs to pupils has plummeted over the past ten years.
The number of teachers that specialise in additional support have plummeted to their lowest level, while the number of pupils who require additional support has grown to almost quarter of a million.
The number of ASN specialist teachers in Scotland dropped to 2,811 – its lowest ever level – last year, while the number of pupils has risen to 226,838. This makes for a ratio of just one ASN teacher for every 81 pupils with diagnosed additional needs.
A decade ago, there were 3,524 specialist teachers supporting just 6 9,587 pupils with ASN – a ratio of one to 20. Since then, policy has moved towards educating more children with additional needs in mainstream schools, rather than in specialist units.