The establishment of a Lilac Sticker for safe websites on safe eating disorders and the introduction of the figure of a School Facilitator, with the task of training and informing in a school environment on eating disorders, starting primarily with teachers.
These are two concrete proposals that arrive a few days before the national Lilac Ribbon day on eating disorders from Dr. Adolfo Bandettini di Poggio, Director of Psychiatry of the KOS Group and brought to a hearing in the Senate in the Health Commission a few weeks ago.
If on the one hand the age range for these disorders is lowering, on the other the cases are increasing sharply: today there are an estimated 8/10 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Italy.
The diagnosis often arrives late, at least 2-3 years after the onset of the pathology, and is almost always accompanied by strong resistance to treatment.
We went from 680,569 new cases in 2019 to 1,680,456 new cases in 2023. In 2022 alone, the number of deaths with diagnoses related to eating and nutrition disorders (anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder) totaled 3,158, with a higher variability in the regions where care facilities are scarce or even absent (Campania, Sardinia, Sicily, Puglia) with an average age of 35 years (which means that a high percentage of this number is less than 25 years old ).
"Anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder are public health problems that are affecting increasingly younger children of both sexes - explains Professor Gabriele Sani, Head of the Department of Psychiatry of the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "Agostino Gemelli" IRCCS. - A clear and early diagnosis significantly increases the possibility of cure. The treatment must be multidisciplinary and include the figure of the psychiatrist, the psychologist, the psychiatric rehabilitation technician, the internist and any other specialists depending on individual needs - continues Sani - furthermore, general practitioners and pediatricians must be involved to arrive at an as early diagnosis as possible".
Thanks to the experience of the KOS Group and its psychiatric centers accredited with the NHS, the "Hidden Disorders" initiative was born in a restaurant in Rome on March 13, created starting from listening to the patients' stories by its medical team multidisciplinary (psychiatrists, psychologists, dieticians, nutritionists, psychiatric rehabilitation technicians).
By focusing on the patients' stories, their sensations and their discomfort, a collection of 6 dishes was born, which tells how the causes of eating disorders are, to all intents and purposes, to be found in the mind.
Each dish allows us to enter into the pathological thoughts of those with an eating disorder, making us understand how the distorted relationship with food is linked to a profound internal discomfort.
The initiative aims, through patients' sentences and illustrations, to raise awareness among the press, institutions and the general public of the complexity of the treatment and rehabilitation paths that a patient with eating disorders must face.
To allow patients to be taken care of, Kos supports the National Health Service by offering around 100 accredited beds for the treatment of eating disorders.
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