EATING DISORDERS
WHEN Zoe Smith finally admitted to a psychiatrist that she had an eating disorder, her concerns were dismissed.
She recalled: “I was told I was not underweight enough to fit the criteria of an anorexic.
“I was asking people for help but not getting it, I was judged on what they saw when I walked through the door. I didn’t conform to the emaciated image people associate with an eating disorder.
“I have spoken to other girls who talk about only just ‘making the cut’ in terms of weight for anorexia. How can you make the cut for something that is a mental illness?”
Sadly, their experience is not unusual. Kerry McLeod, from Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire, was taken to a GP by her mother after her weight had plummeted through her restrictive eating.
Kerry said: “The GP told me to ‘eat a sandwich’. I went home that day no further forward. My mother was at a complete loss.”
This is Eating Disorders Awareness Week and a survey has revealed that three out of 10 sufferers don’t receive a referral from their GP to a mental health service for treatment. And just 34 per cent of those polled felt that their doctor knew how to help them.
Beat, the UK eating disorder charity who undertook the research, are calling for increased training for medical students specialising in general practice so that they are equipped to support sufferers.
Kerry developed anorexia when she was 12. She was a keen dancer and athlete.
The 22-year-old, who is now a nutritionist in Wales, said: “For me, nothing was ever enough, I was never good enough.
“This was when I began to manipulate my diet and restrict my intake. The weight began to fall off.”
A few weeks after that first dreadful visit to a GP, her weight continued to plummet.
She said: “Meals became smaller and smaller each day and I was ‘fading away’.”
Kerry’s mother booked an appointment with another GP, who thankfully diagnosed an eating disorder and referred her to the mental health services.
Her condition was so serious that she had to spend six months in an inpatient unit.
She said: “I believe that if my eating disorder had been diagnosed sooner,