Children and adolescents may follow certain eating habits, which may indicate an eating disorder that negatively affects their health.
Disordered eating affects one in five children, according to the results of 32 studies conducted in 16 countries.
The results found that one-fifth of the world’s children and adolescents suffer from an eating disorder, a term that describes a myriad of abnormal eating habits.
These habits include excessive or decreased appetite, frequent dieting, chronic weight fluctuations, feelings of guilt after eating, vomiting after eating, or lying and secrecy about eating.
Experts say, “These symptoms cannot be ignored because they may worsen and may expose a person to chronic diseases.”
But what makes it more difficult is that you cannot easily notice the symptoms of an eating disorder, nor can you tell who has it by its appearance or appearance, in addition to that some children and adolescents deliberately hide this problem.
For her part, the nutrition expert, Hana Abu Al-Saud, said in her interview with “Sky News Arabia”:
- An eating disorder is different from disordered eating behaviors and is very common in children.
- Not every child who suffers from disordered eating behaviors is thus affected by the disease.
- Disordered eating behaviors in a child, if they continue and increase in intensity with successive days, will affect his educational, social and psychological performance.
- A normal child is one whose food is varied and different, vegetables and fruits.
