Young people are under more pressure than ever to look a certain way, or have a certain body shape.

The perfect look it seems is all about being thin, or at least, not being remotely “curvy” if you’re a girl or the six pack imperative if you’re a boy.

However, it seems to affect girls worse than boys when one considers the fact that 85% of people who have an eating disorder are girls.

A recent sutvey of students found that 60% had been on a diet over the previous 12 months, whilst at the same time it was found that only 9% had a body mass index above what is considered to be correct for their height and weight.

The two most common forms of eating disorders are bulimia and anorexia.

Anorexia nervosa is where the person exercises excessively and eats almost nothing, whilst bulimia nervosa is where the person will binge on food, and then make themselves sick. On their own these disorders can be fatal, combined with diabetes they are very dangerous indeed. Those with anorexia are don’t need very much insulin as they are not consuming sufficient food to produce blood glucose.

Diabetes is a disease that has to be managed. Meals have to be taken regularly and the medication matched to the resulting fluctuations in blood sugars. With an anorexic this is extremely difficult to achieve, given that the patient, by definition, is not eating regularly, if at all. In severe cases of anorexia, it may be that the patient has to be fed intravenously in hospital. This will stabilise the body and treatment for diabetes may commence, perhaps allied to a professional therapist to help the patient accept their body as it is, and cure their anorexia.

Anorexia has an advantage over bulimia in that people become thin. As they start to literally waste away, this can play a key role in convincing them to eat again because they can see they are too thin. Bulimia often has the opposite effect in that people often put on weight. People with bulimia often take drugs such as laxatives to try and lose weight, and these drugs also cause complications for their diabetes. It is not possible to effectively treat people with bulimia for diabetes, so it is vital that professionals are employed to cure the patient of their bulimia.

As a diabetic himself, Toby has suffered some of the side effects of this disease including stress. Learning to play his Ibanez acoustic electric guitar has assisted Toby relax and he would recommend taking up the Ibanez acoustic electric guitar to anyone who suffers from this diabetic condition.