Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

to move:

That the House:

(1)

urges the Government to provide funding for:

(a)

national epidemiological studies of all eating disorders to determine: (i) their prevalence, incidence and correlates, thereby enabling public health officials and professionals’ organisations to coordinate the provision of strategies for prevention, treatment, training and research; and (ii) their natural history, morbidity and mortality;

(b)

a national economic analysis of all eating disorders to determine the overall economic cost to Australian society, including lost and reduced productivity, missed working days, treatment, medication, hospitalisation and lives lost, in order to provide the cost/ benefits of prevention programs, early detection and robust treatment;

(c)

research into current treatment, to ensure the utilisation of best-practice and for the dissemination of research outcomes among medical practitioners;

(d)

increased services for the treatment of eating disorders, including the creation of specific eating disorder centres outside hospital settings for both in-patients and day patients, to provide specialist medical support, counselling and mental health services based on evaluated best-practice;

(e)

the inclusion of the study of eating disorders in university medical courses, to ensure that all medical professionals receive comprehensive training in identification and treatment;

(f)

the development of evidence-based prevention programs in school, community and home settings to reduce the risk factors associated with eating disorders and to promote healthy body image and positive self-esteem; and

(2)

calls on the Government, together with State Governments:

(a)

to convene a national forum on body image, which draws together the media, fashion and advertising industries, medical professionals and school and community groups and acts to develop strategies for addressing the body image crisis; and

(b)

to develop a media code of conduct on body image in consultation with the media, that will, among other things, require the classification of ‘pro-ana’ websites so that they can be banned or filtered out.

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