Kerala teen dies after following extreme online diet plan

India Today

An 18-year-old girl from Kannur, Kerala, died due to health complications linked to extreme dieting. She followed an online weight loss plan and had a deep fear of gaining weight.

Transcript

00:00in Kerala. We are hearing of a teenager who followed an online weight loss plan and died

00:05after extreme dieting. The girl is from Kerala's Kannur, who died due to health complications

00:11linked to extreme dieting. She followed an online weight loss plan, had a deep fear of gaining

00:18weight. The 18-year-old had been unwell for a while now. She's now died due to health complications

00:25caused by severe dietary restrictions and prolonged starvation, reportedly driven by

00:30fear of gaining weight. The teenager, identified as Srinanda, a resident of Kutuparamba, passed

00:39away while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Thalassery, where she had been on ventilator

00:45support. She'd previously been admitted to Koikode Medical College for treatment as well.

01:15I'm going to go straight across to Shibi mall for more details on that story.

01:24Shibi, you know, in this case, the girl has died of anorexia. I understand this is an eating

01:28disorder, but was she following a specific diet online? What was that diet online that she was

01:35following? Tell us a little about that. Also, in many cases of anorexia and bulimia, these are

01:41disorders. Patients like these require psychological counseling. What is the

01:47family saying about this psychological counseling because she'd been suffering for weeks together?

01:53See, her family has not responded to it. We have only the doctor who said that, you know,

01:58initially when she was brought to the doctor, doctor advised her family to give her psychiatric,

02:04you know, consultation. But, you know, considering the taboo that's surrounding,

02:08you know, seeking psychiatric help, family didn't go ahead and seek help is what we're

02:12understanding. She was taken to Koikode Medical College in between, but later on, you know,

02:19a few days before, around 12 days before, she was taken back to the first hospital,

02:24Kalasheri Medical Corporate Hospital. And what the doctor is saying is that when she was brought

02:29there, she was weighing just 24 to 25 kilogram and she's an 18 year old girl. She was really

02:36underweight and directly she was admitted to ICU. So, her parents had informed the doctor that she

02:41has been following some online diet plan. She was been checking some videos on YouTube and following

02:46that is what the parents had informed the doctor. She was literally starving on water and skipping

02:53meals. In fact, she was hiding the food that was given to her by the, you know, at home.

02:57She was throwing the food away and, you know, just drinking water and also regularly exercising.

03:04The, you know, apart from her blood sugar levels and all of that, the main cause the

03:10doctors have been saying is that it's a neurosis, which is an eating disorder that, you know,

03:17which instills a fear of gaining weight and completely makes a person skip meal. It's a

03:22very, it's not a very common disease and it's not a very common disorder is what the doctors were

03:28experts were saying and that post-COVID, in the post-COVID period, it has, you know,

03:33it has become a little more prominent and mostly common in girls to females is what the medical

03:39experts were saying. But very rare condition, a very rare case of, you know, this is what we've

03:46heard from the doctors. You know, it's not very common, but it, you know, it happens in teenagers

03:51and people in this particular age group. But like I was telling you, Shibi, the family, of course,

03:56has been tight-lipped about, but what else are you picking about, about how she picked up this

04:01habit online? You know, whether the family had no idea at all, whether they had some sense that

04:08this was going on, because if she had reached about 25 kilos, it would be evident that she's

04:12extremely underweight and malnourished. Well, what the family is telling is that she's been

04:20following this diet since the last five, six months. So around six months ago, she was,

04:25once they realized that, you know, she's not eating anything, they took her to the doctor

04:29and the doctors did say that, you know, psychiatric condition and she needs to get some sort of mental

04:36support from psychiatrists. But that was ignored. She was not taken to, you know, a psychiatrist,

04:42is what we're understanding in this particular case. Later in between, after seeking help from

04:47the first hospital, there was no change. She continued with this diet plan and then she was

04:53again taken to Kolkata Medical College. There was no progress as such. And again, after that 12 days

04:59before, she was taken back to the first hospital where she was, where she sought help in the

05:05beginning. And that's when the, you know, you know, that's when the doctors say that she was

05:11directly admitted to the ICU and she was brought back around 12 days ago. And her sugar levels,

05:17sodium, BP, everything was through when she was on, out on ventilator support for the last 12 days.

05:24And later condition was, did not improve when she succumbed to what the doctors have been telling.

05:29According to her family, she was hiding food. Whatever food was given to her, she was hiding

05:34and she survived on hot water. She followed a water diet, starving, completely starving.

05:41And also tried to exercise on the fear of gaining weight.

05:48All right, I'm going to thank you for the moment, Shibi, getting us up to speed with

05:51those details of that unfortunate story they were reporting on of a young girl

05:56who's died because of the extreme diet that she followed. Let's tell you a little about

06:02what happened to this young girl, Srinanda, an 18-year-old. She shrunk to about 25 kilos,

06:09extremely unhealthy, weight loss, which obviously meant that she was malnourished. She was bedridden

06:16and admitted to ICU is what we know. And sodium, sugar, blood pressure levels,

06:21everything had dropped. This is an extreme diet that she had followed.

06:27And this is what happened in the case of a young girl who was throwing away the food that was

06:31being given to her, surviving on hot water. This was some diet that she looked up on online and

06:39believed that that could help her lose weight until the time she became severely anorexic.

06:45This, remember viewers, is an eating disorder. We'd also like to add a word of caution,

06:50saying that there are several such diets which are in fact followed and subscribed online,

06:57but that does not mean that you should be following it blindly. This is the young girl

07:02who died. An 18-year-old starved herself to death. What happened here? 18-year-old shrank to 24 kilos,

07:10which is actually the weight for a child who was 5 to 6 years of age. Can you imagine? It's

07:1518-year-old at 25 kilos. She was bedridden and admitted to the intensive care unit

07:21of a hospital on ventilator support. Sugar, sodium levels dropped, blood pressure dropped,

07:27because there was no nutrition in her body. She was placed on ventilator support,

07:33which is a life support system for patients who are critical, terminally ill. She died in the

07:39hospital after 12 days is what the doctors have said in a statement. Unfortunate development

07:45from Kerala where a young girl has lost her life in this fashion.

07:49Anorexia means lack of appetite or loss of appetite. So there are a number of conditions

08:02where appetite is lost, but anorexia nervosa is a condition where this occurs from behavioral

08:10issues or from psychological mechanisms. And the prototype of anorexia nervosa affects people

08:24in the teenage and it's much more common in women, girls rather than boys.

08:40An eating disorder is extremely complex. Obsessive fear of weight gain. So you just

08:47don't want to put anything in your mouth because you think that you would be

08:51adding calories and gaining weight. Patient stops eating, starves self to lose weight. So

08:56in many ways it is also a psychological condition in which you do not understand

09:01that you're harming yourself. It requires treatment, it requires medical attention more

09:06than just anything else. Psychiatric help and psychological guidance was important for this

09:11young woman. Recovery with consistent medical and psychological help. To tell our viewers

09:17that patients on the path to recovery often tend to fall back on their previous habits.

09:22It's a long-term process and needs nutritional counseling as well. This has got to do with body

09:29image issues. It's hugely problematic seen in a lot of young people.

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