...I would assume all eating disorders are “anxiety” related. Adolescence (assuming channel seven news can be trusted), is the time of highest anxiety levels across all ages. It is the imperative, children in this stage of development, have sensible stable and trusting family relationships to guide them through the perils that confront them. But according to the survey (re. above) Youth nominated employment and money as the reason for most anxiety; followed closely by unstable relationships second.

...I also think it fair to say, girls would exhibit eating disorders above the males rate, due to the predisposition of sexual predators to abuse girls as a preference in childhood. Extracting that cause of sexual abuse from the equation, would probably level the field between male and females somewhat.
In many ways, government policy is to blame. Keeping children in the protected environment of schools for periods extending well into adulthood,( when considering tertiary education as well), deprives the child of the ability to deal emotionally with the severity of day to day realities of survival.

...I hold great sympathy with youth of today, and wonder why the obvious flaw in the education system, which prevents children from following a normal path of maturity into society is not corrected. Especially when reading newspaper articles last weekend, which highlighted the overall dissatisfaction by uni students in the employment outcomes, after investing the best phase of their youthful life to study.

...Government has a fundamental obligation to assist our youth with medical interventions for anxiety disorders in the short term, but have the greater responsibility towards fixing a broken education system that effectively “jails” our youth in institutions which exhibit little or no benefit at the end, to our youth who are forced to comply with it.

I'd agree Dan, especially with regard to young males, the education system is no place for a boy these days, they should be out working among adults as soon as it's practical.
Are we also overlooking infantilism in so called "men" as a cause of the abuse of young women?
Boys growing up without fathers is another problem, my Dad was an orphan so he had no concept of what fathering meant, thankfully I had several other male role models, maternal uncles, family friends etc with whom I spent the bulk of my time while he was off at work or otherwise avoiding me.
Since what may be termed "Male life skills" are only learned from living among adult men anxiety over simply not knowing how a real man is supposed to behave or how a real man relates to others must be a crushing disability to a lot of young men.
The same can be said of young women who grow up without fathers,they don't know how a real man behaves, how a real man treats women.

The causation for this growing epidemic is not the settings of education and nor is it about family structure. The reason why we are seeing the rise in these anxiety type disorders has to do with the type of society that has developed - a superficial consumerist and competitive market based society whereby we value fashion and artificiality over intelligence or compassion.

Our society is getting more and more selfish and incidentally unhappy. The countries with some of the highest levels of GDP also have some of the highest rates of clinical depression. The reason why people are getting eating disorders is because in this neoclassical and neoliberal capitalist culture we value superficial looks and selfishness.

This is the reason Year 9 students are fasting and dieting - it is because they want to look good. Society says if you do not look thin than you are doomed to be in the "uncool" group. We see in the school yard and we see this in society as a whole.

It has nothing to do with family structure or education settings - teenagers with eating disorders statistically come from the middle to upper classes of affluence, private schooling and financial freedom. There is more pressure on these teenagers to conform and be seen as cool.

An interesting, but worrying article indeed.
Dr. Wallace reiterates what I have also read in medical articles, which is to say that society as a whole reveres the beautiful and the thin and the rich.

Young men and women have such high expectations for themselves, having read what it is supposed to mean to be 'cool' or 'uncool'in the media or on social media sites online or on TV.

Having worked in low dependency psychiatric units in the past, I agree with Dr. Wallace in his assertions that it is not so much those from disadvantaged family environments, or financially disadvantaged young people with eating disorders, but far more likely to be people from middle income families with two parents.

I tended to see more teenagers and young adults from supposedly 'good' or 'normal' families with these dreadful eating disorders than any others.
It is still somewhat of a mystery exactly why that is, other than having high expectations of themselves, or maybe high expectations of them by their parents?

It's not just eating disorders that are a problem - body image issues in young men are far more likely to lead to steroid abuse, with all its associated health problems, in an effort to achieve the muscular image which society portrays as the pinnacle of male beauty.

DR Albert writes

'Our society is getting more and more selfish and incidentally unhappy.'

Kind of destroys the evolution myth that we are evolving into more moral creatures. Bible proves itself right again and again.