Eating Disorders, Myths Dispelled

The student predicted top grades who is always too busy to eat. The Year 11 who took up boxing to cope with exam stress and is now purging to make weight. Neither looks like the usual image of someone with an eating disorder, and that's how young people like them slip through.

Each of the common myths has a fact to set against it. Around one in four people with an eating disorder are male, and boys are less likely to tell anyone. LGBTQ+ young people face a higher risk. Binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder of all, and it has nothing to do with greed.

You'll also get the iceberg model, a simple way to remember that what you can see, such as the exercise or the high grades, is rarely the whole story.