Question Posted Wednesday January 27 2016, 4:36 pm
My friend is 14 and is probably about 85-90 pounds. She almost completely refuses to eat and when I ask her if she wants help she always says no. Who should I tell? And any advice for me to give her would be great.
swimmer133 answered Thursday January 28 2016, 9:57 pm: Hi!
I know this is sort of my private business, but I too have suffered from an eating disorder, and I'm recovering from it. It was really hard for me to come out clean, and admit that what I was doing was wrong. The best thing for you to do is talk to her about it first it doesn't matter if she refuses to talk about it, she has to know that this is a life threating matter. If that doesn't work then talk to maybe her parents. There's really not much I can tell you, but to talk to her and try to get her parents involved, they need to be aware of this. I hope this helps!
Best wishes
-Swimmer133 [ swimmer133's advice column | Ask swimmer133 A Question ]
adviceman49 answered Thursday January 28 2016, 10:10 am: What your friend may be suffering from is called Anorexia. In short is a mental illness of sort where people think they are fat and refuse to eat to get slim. In most instances they are like your friend terribly underweight. Anorexia kills 100% of the time if not successfully treated.
If her parents are aware of the problem and feel it is only a phase she is going through they are dead wrong. If you know this for a fact then child services needs to be contacted for this is a case of child abuse as well. There are several ways of having Child services intervene.
You should discuss this with your parents and if they agree you could call and report this to the police as a case of child abuse. The police will immediately investigate and based on what you have written. I would say they will intervene immediately removing your friend to a hospital for treatment and having child Protective services intervene.
Another other way is to your school principal and talk to him or her about your concerns. Once notified they would need to take some type of action. I would think the first thing they would do is call your friend into the office to talk to her. Based on that conversation they would decide what steps if any they would need to take next.
On other way to handle this is if your parents know her parents. Then mom or dad could speak to one of them asking about why she is so thin. Then based on the answer they could decide if they need to intervene for your friends safety. [ adviceman49's advice column | Ask adviceman49 A Question ]
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