IT IS a condition generally associated with teenage girls and impressionable young women. But more older women in their 40s and 50s are developing anorexia to try to emulate youthful looking celebrities, experts have warned.

They claim glamorous images of older stars, including Madonna and Sharon Stone, are giving middle-aged women false expectations about how they should - and can - look.

Doctors at the British Dietetic Association say ten per cent of all patients treated at its clinics for eating disorders are now women over 40. Chairman

Ursula Philpot said: 'Ten years ago, most patients in our clinics were young women but there has been a big shift in age in recent years. For many older women something has happened to them, an event such as divorce or their children leaving home, which has triggered their disorder.

'But the quest for perfection, if they have a desire to look like unobtainable celebrities, makes them feel bad and may worsen their disorder.' Susan Ringwood, chief executive of the national eating disorder charity Beat, said: 'It is not just young girls who are now subject to pressures to look good.'

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Last updated: 03/30/2008 - 09:26 AM