Sheffield teenager who had anorexia wants to break eating disorder "taboo"

A Sheffield teenager who battled through anorexia is calling on schools to talk more about eating disorders to help sufferers get the help they need.

Emily Miller, who's now 17, considered suicide after losing 2 stone in just 2 weeks when she was 15.

She now wants to break what she calls the "taboo" of eating disorders, by calling for more mental health classes in schools.

Emily's says her condition had a huge impact on her:

"I just wouldn't eat for ages - halving my meals sort of thing. I fell quite deep into depression with it. I got down to 6 stone at the age of 16 - I lost two stone in two weeks.

"I felt like I had this massive ugly secret about me that I couldn't tell anybody about because no-one understood it. No-one knew what I was going through really.

"I noticed no-one really knew what it was. When my mum had to alert school on it they didn't know how to handle it. It was a completely new situation that a child had a mental illness, that's what is seemed like."

Emily now wants something done to tackle the issue so other sufferers don't have to go through what she did:

"There are people out there that do realise something's not right. But they feel like they can't talk to their parents, they can't talk to teachers, they can't talk to their friends because they feel like they're different - that no-one else is going through this except them. I felt like this for a long time.

"It needs to be taught in school - how to see signs in your friends. There are people that go through it all the time and it goes unnoticed.”

It comes as a charity supporting suffers in our county has told Hallam they've seen a rise in young people needing their help

Chris Hood, Chief Exec of the South Yorkshire Eating Disorder Association, says pressures are more intense on teenagers than in the past:

"The pressure to succeed at school has never been greater. Young people's exposure to the wider world is much much greater than it was when I was a child. Social media's opened it up - there's lots and lots of evidence about the impact of social media in terms of peer to peer pressure.

"There are still some schools who don't believe they have a problem in their school, who maybe are reluctant to have the conversations with a student body about mental health issues and I think within that context it does remain more of a taboo subject - a source of shame and embarrassment.

"The fear of being labelled crazy etc can be quite profound. I think if you are struggling with your own mental health to the degree that you are resorting to using food as a vehicle to express it then I think you are already struggling to articulate your fears and worries."

There's more information on the support available for sufferers of eating disorders on the South Yorkshire Eating Disorder Association website.

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