Eating disorders awareness campaign launched

The Health Promotion Department receives about eight calls a month from people battling an eating disorder or from their distressed family and friends.

However, Malta has no specific eating disorders' unit, so these people cannot be directed to a specific entity, which could help them overcome their ordeal.

"I wish we could give callers a contact number leading them to a multi-disciplinary team of people within the right setting," said health promotion officer Elaine Dutton.

Clinical psychologist Dorothy Scicluna also highlighted the lack of such a unit, which she felt was essential given that these disorders presented the highest mortality rate among psychiatric sufferers.

Dr Scicluna said the rate of eating disorders in Malta seemed to be similar to those found in the rest of Europe and the US.

"We seem to have higher rates of binge-eating disorders, which are possibly related to the high obesity levels present in Malta," she said.

Dr Scicluna and Ms Dutton were speaking at a breakfast meeting at the Hilton (Malta) to launch Taste Freedom, a campaign promoting better understanding, prevention and effective treatment of anorexia and bulimia.

The awareness campaign is being supported by Vodafone Malta Foundation and the HSBC Cares For Children Fund.

Intended to evaluate the current situation of eating disorders in Malta, the meeting discussed new treatments for patients and support networks, including those specifically geared for the patients' families.

Guest speaker Bob Palmer, a psychiatry lecturer at the University of Leicester Medical School, warned that eating disorders were neither rare nor trivial, but serious disorders that deserved to be taken seriously.

Prof. Palmer said those who suffered from eating disorders had an "image problem".

"They are often portrayed as either an exotic rarity afflicting and sometimes killing young women at the threshold of lives that had been full of promise, or as the expression of the foolishness of adolescent girls who take to excess the essentially trivial concerns with appearance and slimness that are widespread in our societies. Neither picture is accurate," he said.

Louisa Bartolo, the campaign's organiser who has battled with anorexia herself, is pressing the cause because she feels there are inadequate resources to deal with the problem.

"I appeal for a more comprehensive, accessible and affordable support structure to be set up for victims and their families. The media should also put these illnesses on their agenda and deal with them in an effective and sensitive way," she said. 

Medical professionals, nutritionists, representatives from sports associations, counsellors, heads of all the Sixth Forms, media personalities, student body representatives, directors of modelling agencies and some politicians, were present for this event.

For more information visit www.tastefreedom.org.