THE sister of a Poleglass teenager who died from Anorexia Nervosa has encouraged others to “look out for signs” to help anyone struggling with an eating disorder.
In 2020, Lauren O’Meara’s brother Corey died after developing an eating disorder as a young teenager. Lauren has been campaigning and raising awareness about the impacts of anorexia ever since.
“He had an eating disorder for as far back as I can remember,” Lauren O’Meara told the Andersonstown News, during Eating Disorder Awareness Week.
“He developed it really young, from about 12-years-old.”
“It got to a point where I think he was about four stone, and he was still saying that he was fat.”
Lauren O'Meara
Lauren explained that her brother was supported in Beechcroft Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit but that when he turned 18-years-old and became an adult, that “there was nothing out there for him".
“After he turned 18, he got discharged from Beechcroft and then it was in and out of the Royal Hospital.
“My daddy and me were begging for the eating disorders team to come around the whole time he was in the hospital and every time we were in, they never ended up coming. By the time he got discharged they still hadn’t come.
“The only real option was to go to over abroad and that’s not really an option when all your family are here.”
Lauren and Corey O'Meara
According to recent statistics, anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, including medical complications associated with the illness as well as suicide.
“When people ask me how my brother died and I say it was an eating disorder, they ask me does that actually kill people. They don’t understand it is life threatening. My mummy had anorexia as well, she died before my brother.
Lauren has encouraged anyone who is struggling with an eating disorder “to talk about it".
“It’s hard not to be in denial but if you had have looked at my brother out in the shops, he would have worn baggy clothes so you wouldn’t have been able to see how skinny he was. He got to a point where he was trying to hide it so much that he was going out and spending £100 on food every week but wasn’t eating one bit of it.
“At the start my brother didn’t want help and a lot of the time people with similar issues won’t want help. When it came to the point where he actually did want it and was willing to accept it there was nothing there.
“It got to the point where he literally couldn’t get off the sofa. He wasn’t able to make it to the toilet on his own, we had to help him. Whenever we were taking him to hospital, my daddy had to lift him the whole way. He couldn’t even walk a couple of steps.”
“It is hard to see but you really have to look out for signs and tell tales that someone has it because they’re not going to turn around and say I have an eating disorder.”
Eating Disorders Association (N.I.): 028 9023 5959
