Family-based treatment is at the core of recovery from eating disorders, as parents of sufferers must learn how to teach their children to eat properly and doctors find that family plays a role in triggering the diseases.

In some cases, adolescent sufferers have lived under the tight control of their parents for years and some were abused during childhood, experts say.

"For example, if children have long been living in families that leave little room for their own identity or autonomy, they may rebel when reaching puberty," says Chen Jue, director of the Eating Disorders Treatment Center of Shanghai Mental Health Center.

"Unable to rebel in other ways, they find they can control whether or not they eat. Eating becomes their biggest resistance and they turn the disease into a fight with their parents," she says.