Scouts and Guides facts and figures

Continuing on from yesterday, I had an email from the lovely S who I will be meeting on Friday in sunny (I can be optimistic!!) Guildford. She has a D currently IP for AN and is having a hard time of it, her younger daughter is part of the Scouting movement and is in Cubs (aged 8-10 1/2 years old) and she thinks maybe Scouts need a training dose on eating disorders and the such like too! Maybe KP and I will just take on the lot, you know in for a penny...in for a pound...

I probably should explain to my non-UK readers, that Girl Guiding over here is part of WAGGS (World Association of Girl Guides and Scouts) so your equivalent may be Girl Scouts or something along that line, Scouts in the UK is now mixed gender.

I also know I have some readers who don't know tonnes about eating disorders. So I just thought I'd do a swift low down on EDs and a generic description of each. If you want more information I would direct you to B-eat.

• Anorexia Nervousa (AN) - involves lowering food intake by skipping meals and limiting food groups and amount of food you intake. Over-exercising or compulsive exercising is often prevalent
• Bulimia Nervousa (BN) - very much a cycling illness, starting by eating a very large amount of food, making yourself sick, cutting down/starving for a few days post intake, or thinking of other ways to make up for the huge intake - then beginning again.
• Binge Eating Disorder (BED) - normally involves eating a very large amount of food over a short time, but unlike BN the person won't get rid of the food. 
• EDNOS - Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. EDs are complex and EDNOS often used where a person show a variation to more specific ED diagnosis'.

I went hunting for some fairly recent figures to do a brief breakdown of figures, and actually what I worked out and discovered for UK Guiding and Scouting groups really does shock me.

The Girl Guiding figures really made me think, KP and I run a fairly small pack, but this time last year we had 25 girls, so the likelihood is one of them would have developed Bulimia, and it is also quite likely we would have one who would go on to develop anorexia. I find that quite sad and quite worrying. I then look at some of the bigger local packs and our Divisional area and start realising the reality of those numbers....very sad to think about

So Scouting has the following facts and figures (taken from the 2012 membership publication):
Beavers Scouts (6-8yrs)        Boys - 100,452      Girls - 16,291        Total - 116, 743
Cub Scouts (8 - 10 1/2 yrs)   Boys  - 126,683     Girls - 21,300        Total - 147,983
Scouts (10 1/2 - 14yrs)          Boys - 97,750       Girls - 23,624        Total - 121,374
Explorer Scouts (14-18yrs)    Boys - 27,971       Girls - 10,830        Total - 38,801
                                              Boys - 352,838     Girls - 72,063        Total - 424,901

So if we go with yesterday's facts and figures:

• 1 in 25 females in the UK suffer from Bulimia

In Scouting that means the number of female members standing a chance of suffering Bulimia that number is:

288 girls under 18

• 1 in 1000 boys aged 15 are diagnosed with Anorexia each year
• 1 in 150 girls aged 15 are diagnosed with Anorexia each year
• Around 20% of Anorexia sufferers die prematurely because of direct links with their illness

As I don't have full figures for each age bracket I will go with a prospective number taking into consideration of the overall totals of boys and girls.

353 boys could suffer anorexia

480 girls could suffer anorexia

of this number 167 under 18s could die.

Girl Guiding UK's 2012 Impact Report states that it has a total of 546,406.

So if we go with yesterday's facts and figures:

• 1 in 25 females in the UK suffer from Bulima

In Girl Guiding UK that means the number of members standing a chance of suffering Bulima that number is:

2186 girls under 18

• 1 in 150 girls aged 15 are diagnosed with Anorexia each year
• Around 20% of Anorexia sufferers die prematurely because of direct links with their illness

In Girl Guiding UK the number of members standing a chance of suffering Anorexia that number is:

3642 girls could suffer anorexia 

(number estimated as lack of breakdown)

of this number 728 girls could die.