Eating disorders, prevention to catch the silent signals

These are complex and silent diseases, difficult to find an adequate therapy and equally difficult to catch the signs in advance. In Italia, 59% of cases of nutrition and eating disorders concern boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 25, but the lowering of the age of onset, with diagnoses as early as 8-9 years of age, is increasingly worrying. This is why the Fondazione Bullone has taken the Niguarda Hospital's request for help seriously and has put its experience in social work into action to launch "Vote 10 with reserve, the awareness-raising campaign" promoted by the foundation itself, together with the Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition Department of the Milan hospital, conceived with the support of the creative agency Next Different (with the support of the Guido Venosta Foundation and the patronage of the Fondazione Italia Patria della Bellezza and the Municipality of Milan).

Together with a single goal: to help understand and prevent some of the signs with which this disease manifests itself and to direct towards qualified treatment centres of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità. Today is National Nutrition and Eating Disorders Day and the campaign lasts throughout March 2026, Lilac Month, dedicated to raising awareness about these disorders.

The campaign highlights how excellence in school or sport, traditionally regarded as a positive value, can become a wake-up call when it is accompanied by increasing isolation, chronic dissatisfaction and excessive performance striving. Ignoring these signs risks precluding early recognition of a deeper malaise. "With this campaign we want to talk to parents, teachers, and educators to inform them about these illnesses," explains Sofia Segre Reinach, director of Fondazione Bullone Ente del Terzo Settore, "and guide them in seeking qualified support with a multidisciplinary approach; it is becoming a real emergency and there is little prevention and awareness. "Fondazione Bullone has always accompanied adolescents and young adults with experiences of major illnesses in rediscovering their identity beyond the illness, building paths to reintegration into social and professional life. It is active in the Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition Department of the Milan hospital as in many others. 'We work both in the wards with workshops for girls and boys,' says Bill Niada, social entrepreneur and founder of the Bolt 14 years ago, 'and in the delicate phase of accompaniment once they leave the hospital. Then many of them become part of our large community'. Which, moreover, is told every month through a newspaper, Il Bullone.

The campaign was produced directly by the foundation, using the experience gained in the production of editorial projects (videos, newsletter campaigns) on social issues, developed together with young people with cancer, eating disorders, HIV-positive births, the disabled, etc. Through these activities, people gain awareness of themselves and their resources, in a path of reintegration into social and working life. 'From this strand of professional activities for others, which complements traditional fundraising,' Niada says, 'comes a substantial part of our resources. Among the client and donor companies are Barilla, Mediobanca, Nestlè, Sky, Richemond Italia, Atm, Esselunga.

DFor years, the Foundation has been working on the theme of fragility with the project Cicatrici (Scars), born in 2018. The B.Liver, young people suffering from serious chronic illnesses, and those from +Lab, the innovative laboratory of the Milan Polytechnic, told and then sculpted with 3D printers their own scars on two icons of beauty, the Venus de Milo and Michelangelo's David, in a 'descent' into themselves - a journey of emotions and verifications that all human beings can make to discover their own wonder. "The theme is that of vulnerability," explains the director. "After having taken this project everywhere, we now also want to enter high schools in a structured way with workshops that create a collective work with teachers or young people. The need is also very strong on the part of adults because there is a difficulty of dialogue and listening on the one hand and a lack of tools on the other'. Laying bare one's wounds has both a listening value in order to pick up on the signs of discomfort in young people (bullying, eating disorders, etc.) and to process the wounds themselves by transforming them into beauty.