Eating disorder research defunded despite MAHA focus on chronic conditions
Experts on eating disorders like anorexia worry that research funding cuts mean patients won't get the care they need.
In the first major report from the president’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, disordered eating is mentioned just once, in passing, in connection with the benefits of family meals. Amid dozens of references to obesity and a major focus on what foods American children consume, there are zero mentions of specific conditions like anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge-eating disorder.
It’s a notable omission in a document purporting to explain how today’s children are the “sickest generation.” Eating disorders have been on the rise for decades, especially among young women and girls. And they can be deadly — a recently published analysis found that people with anorexia are at five times higher risk of death than the general population. Adolescents with other chronic conditions are at particularly high risk of developing eating disorders, and of dying from them if they do.
