Stereotypes about eating disorders plague treatment of Indigenous sufferers

Indigenous Australians are just as likely to experience eating disorders as others within the wider community but a perception the illness is only prevalent among white girls is hampering diagnosis and treatment.

The Butterfly Foundation, the national charity for eating disorders, has found one in 10 Indigenous Australians will experience an eating disorder in their lifetime and 30 per cent of Indigenous young people are concerned about body image. These figures mirror the trends of non-Indigenous Australians.

Butterfly Foundation marketing coordinator Camilla Becket said the EveryBODY is Deadly campaign was trying to raise awareness among the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

“We wanted to address this pervasive stigma that eating disorders only affect privileged young white women,” Ms Becket said.

“We know that this community is affected by eating disorders and body image issues just like everybody else, but we have another sort of added layer of things like racism, discrimination, bullying, intergenerational trauma, all of these things that feed into mental health issues [like eating disorders].”

Eating disorders spiked last year across the general population amid the lockdowns for the COVID-19 pandemic. Butterfly’s national helpline logged a 45 per cent increase in demand from 2019 to 2020; demand was highest from July to October last year but is still sitting above pre-pandemic levels.

Ms Becket said the lack of awareness that eating disorders affected the Indigenous community meant individuals and their families were less likely to recognise warning signs and there were not good treatment pathways within the health system.

Everyone working on the Butterfly helpline now had cultural safety training to provide appropriate support to Indigenous people with eating disorders, she said.

It’s the type of support that Garra Mundine, 29, wishes she had in her teens and early 20s. At one point she tried to access help from an Aboriginal health service but the non-Indigenous doctor was so dismissive and “harsh” that Ms Mundine was turned off from seeking further professional help.