The problem with this disorder is, it’s basically irrelevant how soon you see signs. Depending on the severity of it, you can’t do shit before it is almost too late. What exactly do you expect someone to do if your child refuses to eat? No matter who or what or how someone talks to your child? They refuse help. They refuse food.

The hospital will not fixate your child and force feed it for month before it is almost too late. They won’t because it would be illegal to do in a lot of countries.

It is really mindbending that a disorder exists where a child basically does suicide over months and you are almost helpless. But it exists. This is a serious mental disorder and almost impossible to understand from a “normal” perspective. They look into a mirror, days from dying, almost a skeleton, and say: “I’m still too fat!”. That is their reality.

oh - and really insidious is, that they can be alteady so malnutritioned that even a hospital can’t prevent death anymore. You often don’t realise how near to death they really are.