Colorado is tackling a surge in eating disorders, with its acting governor signing two bills to address the issue.
FILE - Visitors stand on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol, April 23, 2023, in Denver. Colorado is tackling a surge in eating disorders with two bills signed Tuesday, May 30. The legislation will create a state program dedicated finding solutions to the mental illness, ban the use of body mass index in determining treatment and restrict the sale of diet pills to minors.
“Eating disorders are serious and have one of the highest mortality rates of any mental illness,” Vincent Atchity, CEO of Mental Health Colorado, said in a statement on the bills. “We will save lives by removing barriers to care and helping those who are struggling find healing."One of the bills, signed by Colorado's Lieutenant Gov.
Eating disorders are not invariably linked to body weight or BMI, said Claire Engels, program coordinator for the Eating Disorder Foundation, which supported the bill. Instead, they center around eating habits, anxiety, depression, trauma and control. That means those with eating disorders who fall outside the BMI prescription struggle to get proper care or are expelled from treatment prematurely.
The same law will also limit the sale of diet pills to minors after experts argued that they can exacerbate, or even instigate, eating disorders.
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