Support for caregivers amid rise in number of kids with eating disorders

Programme has trained over I20 on how to better care for those on the road to recovery

- Syarafana Shafeeq

During a weight-taking exercise in school in 2019, Ms Angela Tan's 11year-old daughter was mistakenly handed a slip with the weight of a boy who had used the machine before her.

Even though the number did not make much sense for her small frame, the girl called her mother and burst into tears.

Ms Tan, 48, said: "I had never seen her cry like that before." During the school holidays that year, her daughter stopped eating.

Her weight dropped drastically and her hair started falling out.

Ms Tan took the girl to seek help, and she was hospitalised.

After her daughter was diagnosed with an eating disorder, Ms Tan quit her marketing job to become a full-time caregiver for her only child.

She made the tough decision so that she could handle her daughter's home-based therapy treatment, which included serving three portion-controlled meals and three snacks throughout the day.

Ms Tan's daughter is one of many children in Singapore who struggle with an eating disorder.

Eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, characterised by an abnormally low body weight and an intense fear of gaining weight, and bulimia nervosa, which involves binge eating, then purging.

Dr Courtney Davis from KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) told The Straits Times that the hospital saw an increasing number of new cases related to eating disorders among patients aged 11 to 18 - from 50 to 70 cases in 2017 to 140 in 2023.

Psychiatrist Lee Ee Lian from Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital said that developing an eating disorder at a young age impacts physical, mental and social development.

Stunted growth is the most obvious complication, and poor nutrition affects the neurological development of the young brain, she added.