"It destroyed me" - Emmerdale star says earlier intervention needed for eating disorders
Gemma Oaten struggled with an eating disorder from the age of 10.
Last updated 26th Feb 2024
A Hull actress who struggled with anorexia for 13 years has said people suffering as she did need early intervention.
Gemma Oaten is best known for playing Rachel Breckle in Emmerdale, but is also an eating disorder campaigner and CEO of Hull-based eating disorder support charity SEED.
Gemma describes first being taken to see a doctor aged 10: "They dismissed me saying I wasn't low enough in weight to have a problem which then made the issue even worse.
"Within a year I was admitted to a children's psychiatric unit in Hull and given 24 hours to live and thus began my life battling an eating disorder for 13 years."
Last year, the Children's Commissioner for England found that nearly half of children and young people in need of urgent care for eating disorders in England were waiting over three months for NHS treatment.
"It's a postcode lottery as to whether a GP understands eating disorders"
Eating disorder charities have stressed the need for early intervention to help reduce the impact of eating disorders on people's lives.
The NHS 2023 Mental Health of Children and Young People Report identified eating disorders in 12.5% of 17 to 19 year olds and 2.6% of 11 to 16 year olds, with rates four times higher in girls and young women than boys and young men.
Gemma said: "It just destroyed me, sadly there is a BMI threshold and it is wrong and it's very much a postcode lottery as to whether a GP understands eating disorders."
Gemma said eating disorders are often misunderstood as being related to vanity or simply wanting to be thin, when in fact their causes are far more complex.
Gemma said: "My eating disorder stemmed from a place where I was being bullied and I couldn't control what people were saying or doing to me but I could control an element of what went inside me. That's what an eating disorder does; it's a mental health illness. Food is a symptom - it's not the cause.
"My dad often describes it as being like a prisoner in my own mind. It never lets up, the thoughts and feelings of disgust, of shame, of feeling unworthy, of feeling fat, of being preoccupied with food. It's relentless."
Having overcome her eating disorder, Gemma now goes around schools and companies educating people and doing public speaking as well as being SEED's CEO.
If you, or someone you know, is having a problem with an eating disorder, there’s help available from BEAT Eating Disorders - www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk
Or you can call them on these numbers:
England - 0808 801 0677
Scotland - 0808 801 0432
Wales - 0808 801 0433
Northern Ireland - 0808 801 0434
You can also contact SEED on their website