Adverts and exposure to images of celebrity bodies linked to rise in anorexia, experts claim

Increased exposure to images of celebrities' bodies is behind the large rise in the number of young girls being admitted to hospital with an eating disorder, a leading British paediatrician has said.

Dr Colin Michie, the chairman of the nutrition committee at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, blamed the rise on children's use of mobiles and exposure to advertising, citing their ability to constantly look at images of celebrity bodies as a factor in eating disorder cases.

"Adverts for children are a very powerful force. I think we have released a behemoth we cannot control," he said.

"It's not just peer pressure. Children do have a problem with food that is different to problems they had before."

Soaring numbers of children and young people are being taken to hospital for sometimes months at a time because of eating disorders, British National Health Service figures show.

While 658 under-19s in England needed a spell in hospital in 2003-04 to treat an eating disorder, by 2013-14 that number had risen to 1,791, up 172 per cent. More than 90 per cent of them were girls and young women, with teenage girls among the likeliest to become an inpatient, usually because they were suffering from anorexia nervosa.

The figures also show that the number of 14-year-old girls ending up in hospital because of an eating disorder jumped from 74 in 2003-04 to 336 a decade later, with a similarly steep rise - from 87 to 336 - among 15-year-olds.