Most of us are aware of anorexia. Perhaps like me, you associated the eating disorder with teenager girls.  Well, last week an eleven year old fainted at my feet and apparently anorexia is something increasingly seen among 8 to 11 year old children.

My eye opener happened last week.  I’m in the process of creating a line of tween special occasion dresses.  We make a sketch, sew a sample garment and then fitting it on a real person.  The person who fits the sample is called (surprise, surprise) a fitting model.  It’s important to use a real person so that you can see fit nuances and correct the pattern before you go into production.  Fitting models are not super thin models seen in fashion magazines and on the runway.  They are simply people who wear a specific size of clothing.  For the new tween line, my fitting model is a charming 12 year old girl. She has a wonderful attitude and is quite patient as we poke and prod her with measuring tape, common pins and other tools of the trade,  Last week she came with a friend who was also interested in being our fitting model.  Her friend was taller and had started to develop a bust.  Since girls who wear a size twelve dress come in all heights and weights, we welcomed another reference point to see how the clothing looked on a real child – even if she was on the thin side.

Our new fitting model tried on the dress and we started the fitting.  Not even 5 minutes went by when she turned ghostly white and fainted.  Fortunately, she regained consciousness after a few seconds.  We had her sit down and her friend strongly suggested she needed to eat. At first she didn’t want to eat anything. Some gentle questioning revealed that she hadn’t really eaten anything except a small cup of dry cereal that morning and heaven knows when and how much she ate before the cereal.  That’s when anorexia came to mind.

We hear about anorexia among girls.  As mothers of young girls, we need to be aware and pay attention to possible signs of anorexia.  It starts younger than we think, so don’t immediately dismiss an 8 year old who says: “I don’t want to get fat.”  Naively, I didn’t think that an 11 year old girl would be concerned about being fat.  I guess I was wrong.

Contributed by Chief Princess Mom creating a new line of tween dresses.