Abstract
The authors deal with characteristics of disorders in food intake with early beginning of the disease. They analyzed 25 patients hospitalized before they reached 15 yeas of age at the Children Psychiatric Clinic and 1st Children Clinic of 2nd Medical Faculty, Charles University and Teaching Hospital Prague-Motol in the years 2000-2001.
All the patients were girls affected by mental anorexia. The personality characteristic included, in a significant extent, introversion, perfectionism, decreased self-evaluation (self-esteem) and good intelligence.
In relation to the stage of development the authors detected primary amenorrhea in six and secondary amenorrhea in 14 girls, five of them being at the premenarcheal stage. The symptoms included decreased body mass in 25, disorder of body scheme in 19, excessive exercise in 14 and induced vomiting in four of the girls.
In 15 patients there was co-morbidity of depressive disorder and in two subjects there were obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the therapy and establishment of a target body mass, developmental aspects should be taken into account.