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Her granddaughter India
Faulkner-Wiley on a condition that is just as likely to affect the elderly
as the young
Laura's body weight halved in six
months. But then she wasn't eating normal-sized meals: she said she was
scared of eating. A year before she had struggled to squeeze into a dress
size 24, but her final purchase, a pair of black trousers, were a size 14,
and they barely stayed up over her tiny hips and shrinking waistline.
Laura Faulkner was 80 when she died on April 19 this year. She was my
grandmother and she was an anorexic.
Although anorexia nervosa is most commonly associated with teenage girls and
young women, the latest research shows that it is as likely to occur in the
elderly - and that eating disorders in the elderly are more deadly,
accounting for 78% of all anorexia deaths.
Psychologists at the University of British Columbia examined 10.5m death
records, for a four-year period, in the US. They found that the average age
of death from anorexia nervosa for women was 69 and for men 80. And while in
younger cases anorexia victims are 90% female and 10% male, for those over
45, the percentage of men doubled to 21%. Their findings astounded them.
They scoured the literature and found that other doctors had found anorexia
nervosa in people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, but not understood the scale of
it.
Anorexia is a very secretive illness
that is easier to hide for those who are unsociable, lonely or depressed -
which means it is especially easy to hide if you are elderly.
A friend of my grandmother Laura says that her weight loss was never taken
seriously, and was even encouraged, ironically, for health reasons. "I made
an effort to visit regularly, and she would seem as though she were in
denial when I pointed out her weight loss," she says.
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