Editorial

Eating junk foods, or overeating or eating the wrong things, is bad enough. But there are eating disorders that are far more worrying and often lead to very grave consequences.

In the first six months of this year, there were 77 cases of eating disorders. It is quite possible that there were other cases where the trouble was only just starting.

More than half of these were not eating and the rest were eating too much. The first were suffering from anorexia nervosa, while the second from what is called bulimia.

The Health Promotion Department's survey showed that 88 per cent of the cases were female, with almost half of them aged between 18 and 29 and more than a quarter under 17.

It is not very difficult to understand that matchstick figures in the glossy magazines and fashion shows have a great effect on people and most especially on young girls.

People usually think they can see and read what they like without being influenced, but the advertisers who pay good money for overt and subliminal propaganda in favour of their product, obviously do not think so, nor does the world of anorexia.

For some reason, people with anorexia, even if they are wasting away, worry all the time about being fat. They skip meals and diet like mad. They induce vomiting, losing a lot of weight in the process. Three cases had to be hospitalised last year.

But anxiety can also have the opposite effect in some people. Bulimia is characterised by binge-eating followed by extreme guilt and self-induced vomiting or laxative abuse. Unlike anorexia, those who suffer from bulimia are not necessarily skinny and their weight can vary.

The Department of Health is understandably concerned and director Mario Spiteri said the statistics had led the department to launch the first Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

A curious fact has emerged from the "Health Behaviour of School Aged Children Survey (HSBC 2000)". It is that adolescents are very preoccupied with their body image. Now it is not altogether bad that children should be conscious of the body beautiful, but for them to be "preoccupied" about looking like some emaciated catwalk model, is positively diabolical. It shows how bad influences, and wrongly fed information can ruin a young person's life, and how important it is for the media to act responsibly.

However, Health Minister Louis Deguara seems to be on the right track in combating this kind of illness among the young. Asked if Malta was going to put a tax on fatty food like some European countries, he replied that taxes on alcohol and smoking did not serve as a deterrent, and so it was more important to educate ourselves better, starting from the schools.

Feeding disorders may be triggered by other problems connected with family, school or emotional life, all of which can lead to a distorted body image. A large percentage of young children think they are not attractive, and many do not realise they have psychological problems for which they need help before it is too late.

The fact is that growing up in our aggressive world is beset with possible wrong turnings and irresponsible example. Even before they grow up children must learn to choose and judge.