Difficult to swallow

Although our primary remit as dental professionals is to help patients improve their oral health, there are many caveats to this. Each person in the chair will have different needs, have been through different experiences and have different priorities when it comes to their physical and mental wellbeing. We have to work with these and adapt our approach accordingly. With Eating Disorder Awareness promoted at the end of February, I felt this was a good time to consider how we might change our care for patients who have been affected by one of these terrible conditions.

In numbers

An estimated 1.25m people have an eating disorder in the UK. Sadly, a huge proportion of children and young adults are affected by problematic eating. NHS statistics suggest that almost 60 per cent of people aged 17 to 19 years experienced eating problems in 2023, with 57 per cent of those aged 20 to 25 also affected. The prevalence of eating problems in most children and young adult age groups almost doubled between 2017 and 2023.