Battling anorexia

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Description

Anorexia is a complex and very serious mental illness with a range of causes, affecting many thousands of teenagers every year, increasingly boys as well as young girls. One in five sufferers dies prematurely, and in 2008 more under-16s were hospitalised from anorexia than ever before. So what is it really like and how can anorexics be supported? Three teenagers, Lindsay, Rob and Constance have bravely agreed to describe their perilous struggle with this eating disorder, talking openly about their downward spiral into anorexia, which resulted in each of them being hospitalised. They, and their parents, relate the catastrophic affect that this isolating illness had on their physical and mental health, and on their relationships. We also hear from staff in a psychiatric unit which deals specifically with adolescents, and from a school which helped to support a student in their recovery from anorexia.