Health: Anorexia

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley]

My Lords, the House is grateful to my noble friend Lord Giddens for bringing this desperately sad medical condition to our attention again this evening. While reliable statistics are a problem at the centre of this debate, and one that I shall return to, we understand from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence that 1.6 million people in the UK are affected by an eating disorder, of which 11% are male, the vast majority being young women. Hearing and reading about the case studies of some of these young sufferers is a sobering experience. The self-loathing, hugely distorted body image and seeking after some control—any control—over their bodies, is enough to make one ashamed of the societal pressure that we have put on these mainly young people. The cycle of bingeing as a self-punishment for not losing enough weight, as they see it, is often accompanied by self-harming and, in extreme cases, a spiral into sectioning and force-feeding. Children, parents and the whole family are affected as the young person tries every device possible to starve themselves. Trust is replaced by fear and worry.

Why, we ask ourselves, should a significant proportion of our young people want to starve themselves in 21st century Britain in order to have some control over their lives? Is it the pressure put on them through advertising and the media to attain someone else’s idea of the perfect body? Is it the connections made by society between thinness, worth and value? Is bullying on the internet exacerbating the problem, and does the easy access to internet pornography reinforce a falsehood about the way young people, especially young women, should look? We should do all we can to reinforce young people’s confidence and sense of their worth. In a time of austerity, we should think once, twice and three times before applying cuts to young people’s services.

In conclusion, there is at present a lack of data detailing the number of people in the UK suffering from an eating disorder. Although the Department of Health provides hospital episode statistics, they include only those affected by eating disorders who are in-patients being given NHS treatment. Those figures leave out those being treated in the community, as out-patients and privately, and those who have not been specifically diagnosed with an eating disorder. Could the Minister ensure that the Department of Health conducts reliable surveys to provide us with accurate statistics in future? This condition can blight a young person’s life for years and years and, in extremis, kill them. We have to reinforce our work in this area and our commitment to our precious young people.