Teen Use of Eating Disorders Web Sites on the Rise

And parents often unaware children are visiting dangerous sites, study finds.

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2006 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved.

MONDAY, Dec. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Teens with eating disorders often turn to the Web -- sometimes for help with their problem but also for new suggestions on ways to lose weight.

Parents, however, seem largely unaware that their children are using the Internet to visit eating disorder Web sites.

Those are two conclusions from a new study in the December issue of Pediatrics that also found that teens who look for eating disorder information on the Internet are more likely to be hospitalized for their condition than teens who don't turn to the Web.

"People have always picked up and shared dangerous information," said one of the study's authors, Dr. Rebecka Peebles, an instructor of adolescent medicine at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University School of Medicine. "The Internet gives instant access to new and potentially dangerous information kids may not have encountered on their own."

Peebles said this study's findings highlight the need for parents to educate themselves about how to use the Internet and to talk to their children about what they're viewing online.

The Internet, e-mail and instant messaging are popular forms of communication for teens. Children between the ages of 13 and 19 are the group most likely to use the computer, according to background information in the study. Additionally, as many as two-thirds of teenage girls look for health information on the Web.

Some sites provide reliable information. But teens may also stumble across sites with harmful messages. These sites may be run as community forums or chat sites, where teens with eating disorders can exchange ideas and information to reinforce their harmful activities.

For the new study, Peebles, her student Jenny Wilson, and colleagues sent questionnaires regarding Internet use and eating disorder information to the parents of nearly 700 people who had been evaluated for an eating disorder at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital between 1997 and 2004.

One hundred and eighty-two people responded to the survey -- 76 teens and 106 parents.