Obese Teens Who Lose Weight at Risk for Eating Disorders

Obese teens who lose weight are at risk of developing eating disorders, a new article published in the journal Pediatrics suggests.

Furthermore, the report explains, eating disorders among these patients are underdetected since the weight loss is seen as a good thing by health providers and family members.

In the article, Mayo Clinic researchers argue that previously overweight adolescents often have more medical complications from eating disorders but often receive delayed diagnoses when compared to their peers whose weight falls within a normal range.

According to Leslie Sim, an eating disorders expert in the Mayo Clinic Children's Center and lead author of the study, this is problematic as early intervention is crucial to a positive prognosis.

"Given research that suggests early intervention promotes best chance of recovery, it is imperative that these children and adolescents' eating disorder symptoms are identified and intervention is offered before the disease progresses," Sim said.

Sim explains that individuals with a history of being overweight or obese make up a large portion of those adolescents receiving treatment for an eating disorder. As the researcher told USA Today, 35 percent of the adolescents treated for a restrictive eating problem at Mayo Clinic previously fell into one of these two categories.

"For some reason we are just not thinking that these kids are at risk," Sim told the news outlet. "We say, 'Oh boy, you need to lose weight, and that's hard for you because you're obese.'"

The report analyzes two such examples: a 14-year-old boy and an 18-year-old girl who diligently maintained a restricted calorie diet despite a growing number of health and behavioral issues, including cold intolerance, irritability and chest pains in the boy and hair loss, menstrual problems and dizziness in the girl. In both cases, physicians attributed the symptoms to rarer disorders.

Approximately six percent of adolescents suffer from eating disorders, according to the researchers, with more than 55 percent of high school females and 30 percent of males reporting "disordered eating symptoms," including engaging in one or more maladaptive behaviors to lose weight. Such behaviors include but are not limited to fasting, deit pills, vomiting and the use of laxatives.