A haunting dispatch from inside the hospital that saves children from starving themselves to death... before they've even reached their teens
Slumped semi-conscious on the sofa, Megan Archer summoned up what little strength she had left and fixed the paramedic attempting to hand her a vital glucose tablet with a determined gaze. ‘How many calories does it have in it?’ she said.
一篇来自医院内部的新闻让人耿耿于怀，这个医院拯救了那些把自己饿死的孩子——他们甚至还没有进入青少年时期。
在沙发上陷入半昏迷状态之中，梅根·阿彻想起她身上还有一点力气，她意志坚决地盯着正要递给她一片关乎生死的葡萄糖片的医护人员。“这东西里面有多少卡路里？”她说。
Looking at the fragile frame of their 13-year-old daughter — appearing years younger thanks to a cruel illness — Jane and Phil Archer were hit by a wave of utter despair. Those few plaintive words summed up how, in a few short months, anorexia had transformed their healthy daughter into a painfully thin shadow of her former self.
望着他们十三岁的女儿的脆弱的身体，——因为这残酷的疾病，她看起来比实际年龄要小得多——简和菲利·阿彻被一股彻底的绝望击倒了。那些哀伤的言语总结了厌食症是如何在数个月内让他们健康的女儿成为一个她自己塑造的，痛苦地瘦削的影子。
‘It was a terrifying moment,’ remembers Jane, 47. ‘When she collapsed at home, complaining of chest pains, it hammered home how desperately we needed help. She was slipping in and out of consciousness in front of us, that’s when I dialled 999.
“那是一个可怕的时刻，”47岁的简回忆道。“当她倒在家里，嚷嚷胸口疼的时候，完全说明了我们家是多么地需要帮助。她摔倒了，就在我们面前失去知觉，我马上就拨了999.”
‘But when the paramedic arrived and tried to give her just half a glucose tablet and suddenly she was alert enough to be asking him how many calories were in it, I knew that despite doing all we could as parents, we couldn’t make her feed herself, the illness was more powerful than we were.’
“但当医护人员到达，打算给她半片葡萄糖片时，她马上变得警觉，问那些葡萄糖里有多少卡路里，我知道尽管我们做了父母能做到的所有事情，我们还是没能让她吃东西，这疾病比我们更强大”
Megan, a delightful teenager with big brown eyes and hair dyed a fashionable shade of red, interrupts to give her own account of her collapse but is overcome with tears. Determined to explain her emotional response, she says: ‘You begin to feel very selfish about what you are putting your family through.’
梅根，一个有着一双棕色大眼睛和一头染成时尚的红色的头发的快乐的女孩，打断了我们，为自己的垮掉找借口，但已泣不成声。打算解释她的情绪反应，她说：“你开始感到自己非常自私，因为你让自己的家庭遭受了这样的苦难。”
Extraordinary maturity from a girl only just entering adolescence. Yet it is a brutal irony that fighting anorexia gives its victims a maturity beyond their years.
在这个即将步入青春期的少女身上有一种非同寻常的成熟。但一个厌食症的受害者在对抗这种疾病的过程中变得坚强，实在是一个残酷的讽刺。
It is shocking to think that this slip of a girl was hospitalised for five months after her collapse. Yet Megan’s story is far from unique. Last month statistics revealed more than 2,000 children have received treatment for eating disorders in the past three years, and more disturbingly, 98 of those children were between just five and seven.
想到这个女孩的第二次昏迷是在医院之中，她在家中昏迷的五个月以后，这实在是让人震惊。然而梅根的故事不是一个特例。上个月的数据显示，在过去三年间多于2000名儿童正在接受饮食失调的治疗。更让人困扰的是，其中的98个儿童只在5到7岁之间。
I’ve come to Rhodes Farm in North London, which opened in 1991, becoming the first unit dedicated to the treatment of eating disorders in children, to get an insight into this growing problem.
我来到了于1991年开放的位于北伦敦的罗德农场，成为首个协助儿童饮食失调治疗的团体，这让我们能够对这个不断扩大的问题有所洞悉。
The farm, which is in fact a sprawling former family home, is registered to care for 32 patients aged eight to 18, but staff confess that on one occasion they treated a six-year-old girl.
罗德农场实际上曾是一座结构零散的住宅，现在已经注册，负责照顾32名年龄在8到18岁之间的儿童，但那里的员工承认有一次他们治疗了一个六岁的女孩。
No hint of anything remotely clinical is on display here; it’s all colourful duvets, teddy bears on pillows, a living room dominated by a giant TV screen. The heart-rate monitor in the six-bed room that houses the poorliest children is lying discreetly in a corner.
这里没有进行任何临床治疗的迹象；这里有的是色彩缤纷的羽绒被，枕头上的泰迪熊，被一个巨大的电视屏幕占据的起居室。在住着情况最糟糕的六个孩子的房间中，心率检测器正小心翼翼地被放角落里。
The patients, while some look frighteningly thin, are smiling and joking as they sit playing card games round a large table in the garden. But however pleasant the setting, those who run the clinic know the situation is reaching crisis point. A few years ago the average age of admission here was 15; today it is 13 and descending.
尽管有时看起来瘦得吓人，这些病人们围着花园中的大桌子玩扑克牌、说说笑笑时都面带笑容。但不管乡村环境多么让人愉悦，那些跑到农场的人都深知情况到达了一个极其危险的境地。在几年前这个农场里的病人平均年龄是15岁，现在只有13岁，而且这个数字还在下降。
Megan’s mother Jane expresses bewilderment that her daughter should develop this illness at such a young age. ‘Young people should be full of life, free from worries. It was quite a realisation that people could develop anorexia at any age.’
梅根的母亲简对她的女儿在这样小的年纪就得了这样的疾病感到困惑。“年轻人应该充满生命力，无忧无虑。人们可能在任何年纪患上厌食症，这实在是让人醍醐灌顶。”
Megan explains: ‘I never really liked the way I looked from a very young age. When I joined my secondary school most of my friends were quite petite, but I was quite chunky.’
梅根解释道：“从我很小的时候开始我就一直没觉得这种形象有多好看。当我进入中学的时候我大部分的朋友都很娇小，但我长得相当壮实。”
Her words are a poignant insight; it’s clear from the expression on the faces of her parents that Megan wasn’t in the least overweight.
她的话是对事件沉痛的洞察。而从她父母的措辞看来，梅根完全没有超重。
Nonetheless, this is how Megan felt when she decided to attend a local gym. ‘Running became a compulsion,’ says Megan. ‘If anyone tried to stop me going I would get so angry I would just run out of the house and go anyway. It was a passion, I loved it. I felt proud of myself.’
尽管如此，这就是梅根决定加入当地的健身俱乐部时的想法。“跑步成为了强制性的义务，”梅根说。“如果任何人企图阻止我跑步，我会变得很生气，然后跑出家门随便到一个地方去。这是一种激情，我热爱跑步。我为自己感到很自豪。”
With the benefit of hindsight, Phil and Jane wonder whether they could have spotted the signs earlier, but at the time they were proud that their daughter had found something she loved and was good at.
他们在问题发生只有才有所意识，菲利和简想知道他们有没有可能早点发现这个征兆，但那时他们为自己的女儿找到一件她喜欢而且擅长的活动感到自豪。
But as Megan exercised more and, unbeknown to her parents, ate less, her weight began to plummet. Worried she wasn’t getting adequate nutrition to support her exercise — her parents consulted a nutritionist. But Megan just became worse, as she made excuses to avoid eating with the family, and cutting food into minuscule portions, her weight continued to drop and her family felt powerless to help.
随着梅根练习得越来越频繁，而且瞒着父母吃得更少，她的体重开始暴跌。担心她不能获得足够的营养去支持她的训练，她的父母咨询了一名营养师。但梅根开始找借口避开与家人一起吃饭，并且只吃很小一部分的食物，情况变得更糟了。她的体重持续下降，她的家人感到无力求助。
They attempted to make Megan eat, sat with her until she ate, took her to the GP and even bought nutritional shakes, but she refused to touch them.
他们打算让梅根吃饭，坐在餐桌上直到她开始吃，带她到医生那里去，甚至为她买营养饮料。但她拒绝了这一切。
‘It’s you against the anorexia,’ adds her father, Phil, a supermarket manager. By the time Megan was referred to Rhodes Farm, the situation had reached crisis point. Just a day after referral Megan collapsed at home in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire; she lay down and when she got up her body simply couldn’t cope.
“是我们全家在和厌食症抗争，”她的父亲菲利补充道，它是一个超市经理。梅根被带到罗德农场，情况已经是千钧一发了。那正是梅根在赫特福德郡贺梅尔亨普斯德城的家中晕倒后的第一天；她倒下了，当她起来的时候她就是不能控制好自己的身体。
That afternoon in November 2010, she was assessed by staff at Rhodes Farm, two days later she was admitted to the clinic.
2010年11月的那个下午，罗德农场的工作人员与她接触，两天后她被准许入院。
During her stay, she shared a room with 17-year-old Alice Leng. Alice, another charming and vivacious teenager, was admitted to the clinic suffering from anorexia at 16. Alice’s issues with body image started at the tender age of just ten. Neither of the girls want to divulge just how much they weighed when they were admitted, as they know only too well the competitive nature of fellow sufferers who may be reading this piece, but, as with Megan, Alice required urgent treatment to get her back to a healthy weight.
在她住院期间，她和17岁的爱丽丝·凌共用一间房。爱丽丝，另一个充满魅力的活泼的年轻人，在16岁时遭受厌食症折磨并入院。爱丽丝对身材的担忧在她少不更事的十岁时就开始了。在入院时，这些女孩不愿意透露自己的体重，因为她们清楚地了解这些充满竞争意识的病友，她们可能会关注这些问题。但和梅根一样，爱丽丝需要紧急的治疗让她的体重回复健康水平。
Alice, now a young ambassador for eating disorders charity B-eat, gives a worrying insight into the mind of a child anorexic.
爱丽丝现在是一个饮食失调慈善组织B-eat的大使，对有关儿童厌食症的观念表示担忧。
‘If you look at people with eating disorders they are perfectionists, hard-working, generally get good grades,’ she says. ‘The signs are there. I was always fussy about food; I was paranoid about different foods touching each other, I didn’t like sauces. On top of that I’ve always been quite self-conscious.’
“如果你要找一个饮食失调的人，那么他们是完美主义者，勤奋，通常成绩很好，”她说。“征兆就在那里。我总是对事物很挑剔，我对被别人接触过的食物感到非常多虑。我不喜欢沙司。在那方面我总是非常自觉。”
By the time she was 16, Alice had suffered some bullying at school —nothing too specific just typical teenage teasing — and was worried about gaining weight due to a thyroid condition. Soon, her determination to drop weight became an obsession.
当她十六岁的时候，爱丽丝在学校遭受了欺凌——没有特别的原因，只是典型的青少年间的戏弄——并且开始对长胖感到担心，因为甲状腺的疾病。很快地，她减肥的决心成为了一种痴狂。
Alice’s mum Sheila watched over her daughter as she made a desperate attempt to get her to eat. ‘I could see what was happening. But for me it was like holding sand in your hand, you just can’t stop it slipping through your fingers. You feel helpless.’
爱丽丝的母亲谢拉监看着她的女儿，当她绝望地想让女儿吃点东西的时候。“我能知道正在发生什么事。但对我而言这像是把沙子握在手中，你就是不能停止沙粒从指缝中漏走。你感到无助。”
Sheila eventually pleaded with her local mental health service to help her daughter, and it worked. Alice was admitted to Rhodes Farm last November. She describes herself at that time as ‘broken inside.’
谢拉最终申请了当地的精神健康服务去帮助她的女儿，那确实有所成效。去年11月爱丽丝被罗德农场接收了。当时她描述自己“内在破碎”。
Alice, like Megan, was lucky. Her NHS trust paid for a place at Rhodes Farm; no small feat since it cost ￡499 a day per child.
爱丽丝和梅根一样是幸运的。她的国家卫生事业局信托基金为她支付了在罗德农场的费用；这不是一件小事，因为每个儿童一天的花费是499英镑。
It’s not a place where children are force-fed, in fact, staff at the clinic tell me they have had to resort to tube-feeding a child just once in the last two years. Instead through peer support, the children are encouraged to eat each meal together.
在这里儿童不会被强制喂食，事实上，农庄里的工作人员告诉我他们在过去两年中只有一次需要对一个孩子采取胃管喂食的方法。相反地，通过同伴之间的互相支持，这些孩子们被鼓励一起吃每一顿饭。
Target weight gain is 2kg — or, roughly, four-and-a-half pounds a week. Multiply that by the 20 weeks Megan and Alice spent here —around six stone — and it’s easy to see how perilously ill both girls were.
目标体重增长是每周两公斤，或者至少四又二分之一磅。算上梅根和爱丽丝在这里度过的二十周，那她们应该已经长了6英石。很容易看出这些女孩曾经病得多危险。
Martin Davies, eating disorders lead clinician for Care UK, which runs the clinic, says: ‘When I started in the field back in 1986 you would rarely hear about someone aged ten, now I’m not surprised by some of the younger people we’ve treated here.’
马丁·戴维斯，“关爱英国”饮食失调方面的专家，也经营着这个农场。他说：“当我在1986年开始研究这个领域时，很少会听说年龄在10岁的患者，现在我对更年轻的人在这里接受治疗感到毫不惊讶。”
What does he think has sparked such an alarming trend? With a sigh he says: ‘I guess for me it’s about the world we live in, a society where the pressures of daily living are increasing; pressure on kids to mature earlier, where the family unit is more complicated, where family meals aren’t always together?…’
在他眼中是什么引发了这让人警觉的趋势呢？他叹了一口气，说：“我想是因为我们生活的这个世界，一个日常生活的压力不断增加的社会；迫使孩子过早成熟，而且现在家庭关系更为复杂、家人不能经常在一起吃饭……”
And society’s obsession with body image? ‘I don’t think it’s a trigger,’ he says. ‘Anorexia isn’t the slimmer’s disease, it’s the biggest killer of all mental health illnesses. To suggest it’s about people wanting to look like someone they see in the media trivialises it, but certainly I think that those images don’t help.’
那么社会对身体意象的狂热呢？“我不认为这是一个原因，”他说。“厌食症不是苗条的人的疾病，而是众多精神疾病中最强大的杀手。认为这是因为人们想要看起来像电视里的人一样是一种平常的观点，但我觉得电视中的映像没有影响。”
As he talks, a girl who could be eight or nine walks past. ‘She’s 12, but she doesn’t look it does she?’ he says. ‘Anorexia arrests all aspects of development, not just growth, it can impact on fertility, it can cause early signs of osteoporosis and young kids don’t need to lose the same volume of weight as an older person before they are in danger.’
正当他说话的时候，一个可能8岁或9岁的女孩经过了。“她十二岁了，但看起来不像吧？”他说。“厌食症使人的发展完全停止了，不仅是生长，而且对生育能力有影响，它会引发骨质疏松症的早期症状，年轻的孩子在他们陷入危机之前，不需要减掉和成人相同的体重。”
Before I leave Megan bounces over to me and whispers: ‘Please can you say how much I appreciate all the help my parents have given me.’
在我离开之前梅根蹦跳着朝我走来，低声说道：“请告诉我的父母我是多么感激他们为我做的一切。”
But the simple truth is, just seeing their daughters smiling and healthy again is all the thanks any of these parents want.
但一个很简单的事实是，看到他们的女儿的笑容，能够恢复健康，就是这里的每一个父母想要的感激。
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