Rome: Italian authorities will launch a campaign to counter a growing epidemic of anorexia and other eating disorders in a country known for its fashion industry and the "bella figura".

The Italian Ministries of Health and Sports are targeting the project worth US $ 1.54 million on schools and the media, providing guidelines for magazines, television, radio and Internet sites to discourage ultra-thin beauty ideals.

Anorexic individuals starve themselves voluntarily to control body weight.

The project, which begins next month, will also provide training for dance instructors and coaches of such sports as gymnastic and swimming and it will include a website to encourage teens to discuss healthy eating habits and to counter websites where anorexics share tips in starving themselves.

"Anorexia and bulimia are diseases that have not been recognised for many years as such. It was sort of a veil of unspoken and unrecognised problems," said Giovanna Melandri, the Minister for Young People and Sports.

"So what we really needed to do was to take away the veil to make sure young people, young girls and young boys, know that they can die," she told AP Television News.

She cited statistics indicating that more than two to three million Italians suffer from such eating disorders, 10 percent of whom are men. The Association for Pediatric Medicine recently reported that nearly 65 per cent of girls between 10-16 years of age want to be skinnier than they are.
Source : PTI