Boys get anorexia too

Community Practitioner, April, 2009 by Ros Godson

Coping with male eating disorders in the family

Jenny Langley, Paul Chapman Educational Publishing (2006)

ISBN: 9781412920223, 20.99 [pounds sterling]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This wonderful book is both a personal tribute to a brave young man and his loving family, and a superb practical and insightful guide to the disease of anorexia and how to deal with it.

Reliable data about the extent of eating disorders in boys are not available, but practitioners report that they treat fewer boys than girls.

The book charts the progress of a normal and healthy 12-year old boy who decides to diet a little to improve his sporting prowess, but finds himself ensnared in a cycle of compulsive exercise and rejection of food as he develops an irrational fear of becoming fat. Even though he has the insight to understand the predicament he is in, he is unable to do the one thing which would release him--eat.

There follows a heart-rending account of a mother watching her son fade away in front of her eyes, as he is taken over by 'Rex'--'the anorexia which reared its ugly head and distorted my son's brain'. She describes the accompanying obsessive compulsive disorders, emotional lability, childhood regression and stress of all this on the child and the rest of the extended family.

Readers who have never dealt with mental or emotional traumas in their offspring might find themselves becoming impatient with the author's soul searching, but this is a natural reaction from any mother whose child develops a life-threatening illness.

As she describes--with increasing desperation--the efforts to receive professional care and treatment, it is gratifying that the NHS rises to the occasion, and over time helps her child to regain his health. However, you are left in no doubt about the trauma of having to leave an extremely distressed child in an adolescent in-patient unit.

For practical advice, there is a good section explaining the jobs of different health personnel. The reader is also directed to self-help groups and charities for further support.

There is advice for family and friends to support the carers, and readers are given realistic time frames and cautioned against relapse. It is slightly disappointing that the author uses a US version of a food guide rather than the Department of Health's.

I commend this book as essential reading to all nurses, doctors, therapists, statutory and voluntary staff whose work brings them into contact with boys and young men.

Reviewed by: Ros Godson

Unite/CPHVA professional officer for school health and public health