Singapore - Cases of anorexia are up in Singapore with mounting numbers of teenage girls convinced the eating disorder is hip, The Sunday Times reported. Anorexia, in which a sufferer severely restricts food intake, is affecting adolescent females 10 times more than males in a society where slim is in.
"There is a copycat effect," Dr Liow Pei Hsiang, a consultant at Alexandra Hospital's psychiatric unit, where the number of patients seeking treatment for eating disorders has doubled in four years.
"It's like an 'in' thing among girls, especially those in girls' schools and universities," Liow was quoted as saying.
One 14-year-old, who ended up hospitalized after losing 10 kilograms in six months, said she and her classmates would compete to be the skinniest in class.
"We would try to outdo each other by seeing who ate less that day, or who exercised more," she told the newspaper after her weight plummeted to 29.5 kilograms.
Typical of many victims, she said it was the taunting of her classmates and sisters that started her rejection of food, eating only vegetables and small spoonfuls of rice each day.
Singapore General Hospital reported seeing up to 30 patients a year before 2002. Last year, 200 came for treatment.
Consulting psychiatrist Lee Ee Lian cited several teen patients with body mass indexes of nine who were so weak they could not speak or swallow.
One anorexic female was hospitalized 50 times in four years while another had severe psychotic depression. "She heard voices telling her to kill herself, which she eventually did," Lee said.
The hospital's eating disorders programme loses one patient each year to suicide, pneumonia and starvation, the report said.
