Denying people with eating disorders help until their body mass index is low enough is particularly dangerous for male patients, writes one parent

The chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists is concerned that people with eating disorders in England are denied help until their body mass index is “low enough” (Report, 5 April). The situation is even worse than you report, because at least a tenth of anorexia nervosa sufferers are male. They have lower fat reserves, and their irreducible skeleton is a larger proportion of their body weight. Starvation is therefore quicker to affect their muscles and vital organs.

In our city, the criterion for hospital admission is a BMI of 14. This seems to be based on experience with young women. Our GP was trying to get our son into hospital for five weeks. Our son was unable to sit up or cough, and had significant renal and liver impairment; he was at death’s door. Only when his BMI reached 14 was he taken to hospital for two months’ physical stabilisation. He then spent six months in a specialised eating disorders unit (60 miles away, as our city had no male beds for anorexia).

Many of us will leave lockdown a few pounds heavier than we started it, but there is no shame in finding pleasure in food

You know how people fill online baskets with clothes they never buy? I do that now with food. I see something advertised, compile an extravagant order, then don’t follow through. In the past few weeks, I have almost ordered hand-pulled noodles, oysters and something described as a “pistachio black forest gateau” (I am still thinking about that one).

It’s a new iteration of emotional eating, still apparently my main hobby and way of marking the passage of time. Friday is pizza, Saturday is jumbo Hula Hoops, Easter Sunday was fistfuls of Mini Eggs, anticipated then enjoyed with the abandon of one of the worst Roman emperors. Most evenings, my husband and I stand in the kitchen rationalising that it’s perfectly reasonable to have what he calls “a proper apéritif” (he means crisps with our drinks, but wants to sound sophisticated).

Experts warn of surge in condition in pandemic, and say patients being put in ‘life-threatening position’ to lose more weight

• ‘My intuition told me something was wrong’: three women denied help with their eating disorders

Growing numbers of women and men in England with eating disorders are being denied support because they are not considered to be thin enough to warrant it, a leading psychiatrist and other experts have warned in a briefing shared with ministers.

Against the backdrop of a fourfold rise in people admitted to hospital with eating disorders during the Covid pandemic, doctors said body mass index (BMI) was too often used as a blunt measure to decide whether someone should get treatment.

The women who felt their eating disorders were not taken seriously by doctors tell their stories

• People with eating disorders in England denied help as ‘BMI not low enough’

As a personal trainer, Chloe Hodgkinson was considered the epitome of good health but when she came off the contraceptive pill, her period stopped.

Months passed and, despite her doctor saying it was normal for menstruation not to return immediately, Hodgkinson, 25, could not shake the feeling that something more was going on. “I told the doctor that I think I undereat and have a weird thought process with food,” she said. However, she said that because her body mass index (BMI) was not low she was not taken seriously.

We would like to hear from those who have sought help from the NHS for eating disorders

The number of people experiencing eating disorders has risen dramatically during the Covid-19 pandemic.

During a parliamentary health and social care committee meeting last week, Claire Murdoch, the NHS England director of mental health, said there had been a doubling of eating disorder referrals in the last 12 months.