“Nutrition and eating disorders affect approximately 4 million Italians – 5% of the population, of which 70% are adolescents – and represent the second cause of death among young people (after road accidents), with 4 thousand deaths per year. year in the age group between 12 and 25, according to estimates from the Ministry of Health. And diagnoses of eating disorders have practically doubled in the post-pandemic period. This is why the news of the cut in resources for the fight against eating disorders in the latest budget law leaves us dismayed, despite the reassurances of Minister Schillaci which followed the protests of recent days, on the allocation of an extraordinary fund of 10 million for 2024 while waiting for the interventions to become structural”. The founder of Impresa per la vita Onlus, Donatella Possemato, declared this in a note.
“Illnesses such as anorexia, bulimia or binge eating – he explains – are disabling, potentially fatal pathologies, which compromise not only the physical health and social functioning of the individual, but affect both sexes of childbearing age with serious consequences on reproductive well-being and , therefore, on the possibility of having children. There is a lot of talk about the fight against the birth rate and the lack of care regarding eating disorders aggravates the problem: the treatment of nutrition and eating disorders is one of the interventions to protect women's fertility, given that one of the symptoms is amenorrhea (absence of periods)”. For this reason “resources are needed for services and treatment centers in the area, for the training of specialized personnel and to provide support to families: who takes care of the family distress that these pathologies cause?”.
“I define it as a 'cancer of the soul' because people die from eating disorders”, Possemato remarks: “Despite the severity of a pathology that is so complex and difficult to diagnose at the first symptoms, and which has fatal consequences – he continues – funds are needed to finance treatments and care protocols. Yes, because saying 4 thousand deaths in Italy every year means containing a number of victims, mostly young people under 25, which does not take into account those who die from other causes as a consequence of diagnostic delays and for the lack of access to treatment because there are waiting lists that are too long, which become fatal”. The “public spending cut introduced by the 2024 budget law while waiting for the funds to become structural with the entry into force of the new LEAs (essential levels of assistance) – concludes Possemato – marks a stop to the creation of assistance services and the downsizing of those that already existed”.
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