Eating Disorders: Prevention of Deaths Debate
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Liz Twist
Main Page: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)Department Debates - View all Liz Twist's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Eating Disorders: Prevention of Deaths
Liz Twist Excerpts(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) for organising this important debate.
I come to this debate through my work with the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention. There is a clear link with eating disorders, which has been drawn to my attention by the charity Eating Distress North East. Up to a third of people with eating disorders have made suicide attempts, and they are 18 times more likely to die by suicide. Measures to prevent this are really important and must be a priority. The suicide prevention strategy does highlight the need to tackle issues for eating disorders, but I know that lots of organisations in the field would like to see more done in that area.
I want to talk about the role of online harms, which are really problematic. Attention has been drawn to particular sites, and I know that the Government will want to work with Ofcom to make regulations effective for these people, but it is also about the impact of less harmful content. We need greater agency for people to control what they see. Saying that they are not interested is not sufficient. AI, of course, presents new issues.
Eating disorders are devastating and on the rise. Eating Distress North East recorded 78% more referrals in 2024-25—
Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)
Order. I call the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.