Tweens starving for perfection

This is an exceprt from an article that orginally appeared on CBS News on June 30, 2009:

"A recent study found that 81 percent of 10-year-old girls are afraid of becoming fat, and that many feel better about themselves when they're on a diet.

Anorexia is affecting pre-teens more than ever, CBS News correspondent Terrell Brown reported on "The Early Show" Tuesday. And the battle to overcome the eating disorder for "tweens" can be devastating, Brown says.

Ten-year-old Shae Walker was an accomplished gymnast, practicing up to 16 hours a day. But when she decided to quit and focus on her studies and social life, Shae said, she began to have bad thoughts about her weight.

"Probably a month after quitting," Shae's mother, Michele Walker, said, "she would look in the mirror and make comments to me saying she was fat."

Michele told her daughter that was ridiculous.

But Shae began to believe she was getting fat.

"I would pinch the fat on my stomach or what was probably skin," she said. "When I looked in the mirror, it looked to me that I was getting fatter or I was fat. ... I was seeing every imperfection that I had. ... I got a feeling like I wasn't good enough anymore."

Shae refused to eat anything but salad. She exercised compulsively and wore baggy clothes to hide her shrinking frame from family and friends. In just three months, Brown reported, she dropped from a healthy weight of 85 pounds to just 68."

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