Concern Over Male Eating Disorder Stats in Leeds

Parents and teachers are being urged to look out for signs of anorexia and bulimia in boys. It's after Radio Aire obtained figures that show nearly half of children under 12 being treated in Leeds for eating disorders are male . But that number drops to just 8 per cent once sufferers hit their teenage years. Bev Mattocks (pictured) is an author from Moortown whose son was diagnosed when he was 15, "We were parents of a boy, we didn't recognise the signs of it. To us eating disorders only happened to girls." But Bev soon noticed a big difference in Ben, "his moods had changed, his voice had changed, he was just a totally different person, he was becoming almost skeletal. "He began to exercise more and more and more, meanwhile he was eating less and less and less, he discovered low fat foods. "He'd been fat at primary school, or rather he thought he was fat, and he'd been bullied and he thought that if he cut down on the sport he'd get fat again. "He was becoming so obsessed with this healthy eating and this exercising that he just totally cut himself off from his friends. "He was getting very depressed, he was getting snappy, the worst thing of all he believed that he was getting fatter when, in fact, he was losing weight at a rapid, rapid pace."

Despite better awareness of the problem affecting both genders these days, Leeds Clinical Psycologist Dr Julia Coates says there's a long way to go, "You look for it in girls and schools will be very hot on talking about it, the school nurses will be very hot on noticing it. But not so much in the teenage boys. It's more kind of hidden and undercover." Dr Coates believes there's a simple reason why there's a huge drop-off in the figures as soon as boys hit puberty, "For young boys, it's their parents who notice the change in eating and behaviour and their parents bring them to seek help. "As they get older the boys themselves choose not to because they're more embarrassed, they're more ashamed. "People are just not recognising it." !