KCUR: Kansas City needs more 'accepting' treatment options to help kids with eating disorders

By Noah Taborda

If you’re a teenager on social media, you are probably bombarded by explicit and subliminal messages that make you question your appearance and make you think twice about what you put in your body.

On TikTok for example, you’ll find an avalanche of videos from dieting and fitness influencers telling you what you should eat. But just a few swipes later, you might find a video saying the opposite of what the previous person said.

Good advice is available on social media platforms if you are able to parse through the mixed messages. But if you're a kid who is already dealing with insecurities and anxieties, it can intensify body image issues and harm your relationship with food.

More young people are seeking treatment at Children’s Mercy, says Sara Gould, who runs the hospital’s eating disorders center. That’s especially true since the pandemic. She’s even seeing more frequent visits from elementary school kids.

“Our kids are getting a lot of messages and following dieters or ‘nutrition experts’ and getting a lot of false information or information that’s solely intended to address obesity,” Gould says. “When you apply that in a typical weight person, it’s not healthy. But those kinds of messages are often presented as always the best thing to do.”

Read the full article via KCUR