Review: Can I Tell You About Eating Disorders?

Eating disorders through children's eyes

At least 1.6 million people in the UK are directly affected by eating disorders, which can affect anyone at any stage of life, and do not discriminate based upon age, sex, ethnicity or background. However, eating disorder onset is commonly prevalent in adolescence, making children and young people a key group affected and underpinning the focus for this book.

Can I Tell You About Eating Disorders? invites the reader to explore and learn about eating disorders through being part of a thoughtful discussion with young people. Along the way we meet Alice, Beth, Freddie, Sam and Francesca, who take turns to tell their story and explain their difficulties with eating as well as how it makes them feel. The group of young people featured represents males and females of differing ages and experiences, and explores anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, food avoidance emotional disorder, selective eating disorder and functional dysphagia. The book is aimed at young people aged between seven and 15 to help them learn about and understand eating disorders. But this text could be useful for anyone with an interest in eating disorders, alongside those working with and caring for young people affected.

What is unique about the book is that the text is from the first person perspective of the children, and focuses on what matters to the young people in supporting them with their eating disorders. Information is presented in dialogue form, guiding the reader through each child's experiences and enabling the reader to witness the children teaching and learning to understand each others' challenges, similarities and differences with their eating disorders as the book progresses. This provides a privileged look into the young peoples' experiences and the questions that arise for each of them.

There are 15 sections of the book: Introducing Alice and her friends, looking at food avoidance and why each child has a difficult relationship with food, their thoughts and feelings, what causes eating disorders, problems they have at home and at school, how other young people can help, along with helpful tips.

This book would be a useful support and insight for young people, friends, siblings, carers and teachers to understand what an eating disorder feels like for a child, as well as a valuable component of the toolbox used by healthcare professionals in the eating disorders field and practitioners in the children and young people's sector. Most importantly, it shows the young person and their identity beyond their eating disorder, highlighting the importance of treating young people just like any other boy or girl, who have hobbies, interests and lives outside their disorders and problems with eating.

Reviewed by Sara Preston, young people's participation officer (Scotland) at Beat

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