Kids with difficult eating habits may have psychological issues

A new study has observed that kids with difficult eating habits have underlying psychological issues.

The study conducted at University of Montreal has found that restrictive behaviors could appear before puberty.

Clinical psychologist and Professor Dominique Meilleur, said that many researchers believed that bulimia only appeared at adolescence, but their studies indicated that the problem could arises much earlier and it was possible that it was currently under-diagnosed due to a lack of awareness and investigation.

The authors studied the psychological, socio-demographic and physiological characteristics of 215 eight to twelve year olds with eating problems and kids with physical issues that could cause eating problems, such as diabetes or cystic fibrosis, were excluded from the study. The researchers found that the children often suffered from other problems in particular, anxiety and mood disorders and attention deficiency. More than 15.5 percent of the children in the study made themselves vomit occasionally and 13.3 percent presented bulimic behaviors.

"The fact that most children had been hospitalised upon contact with medical services suggests that the children's physical health was precarious. It is also worth noting that psychiatric issues were present in the families of 36.3% of the study participants," Meilleur explained.

The results of this study indicate that 22.7 percent of the children identify having been mocked or insulted for his or her appearance as a trigger event to the modification of their behaviors.