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Pediatric Surveillance Units (PSUs) provide a unique model for the study of pediatric eating disorders (EDs). Australia, Britain, and Canada have surveillance programs that have generated valuable epidemiological and clinical data on early-onset eating disorders (EOED). The PSUs represent an important collaborative tool that has helped shape our understanding of EOEDs and offers potential to contribute to decisions regarding health resource allocation and public health policy. This paper reviews the role of PSUs as a unique model to study pediatric EDs and its success in translating the knowledge generated by these programs into improving the health of children and adolescents with EDs worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested the hypothesis that latent class analysis (LCA) would successfully classify eating disorder (ED) symptoms in children into categories that mapped onto DSM-5 diagnoses and that these categories would be consistent across countries. Childhood onset ED cases were ascertained through prospective active surveillance by the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit, the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program, and the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit for 36, 24, and 14 months, respectively. Pediatricians and child psychiatrists reported symptoms of any child aged ⩽12 years with a newly diagnosed restrictive ED. Descriptive analyses and LCA were performed separately for all three countries and compared. Four hundred and thirty-six children were included in the analysis (Australia n570; Canada n5160; United Kingdom n5206). In each country, LCA revealed two distinct clusters, both of which presented with food avoidance. Cluster 1 (75%, 71%, 66% of the Australian, Canadian, and United Kingdom populations, respectively) pre-sented with symptoms of greater weight preoccupation, fear of being fat, body image distortion, and over exercising, while Cluster 2 did not (all p<.05). Cluster 1 was older, had greater mean weight loss and was more likely to have been admitted to an inpatient unit and have unstable vital signs (all p<.01). Cluster 2 was more likely to present with a comorbid psychiatric disorder (p<.01). Clusters 1 and 2 closely resembled the DSM-5 criteria for anorexia nervosa and avoidant/ restrictive food intake disorder, respectively. Symptomatology and distribution were remarkably similar among countries, which lends support to two separate and distinct restrictive ED diagnoses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]