Health specialists are reporting a significant rise in eating disorders among women over 50, challenging the long-held assumption that such conditions primarily affect teenagers and young adults. At the Hospital de Bellvitge in Barcelona (one of Spain's leading specialist eating disorder units), a quarter of all cases now involve patients over 46, and a US study found that emergency admissions for eating disorders among women aged 40 and older nearly tripled over two decades. Experts point to menopause-related body changes, aesthetic ageism — social pressure to conceal signs of ageing — and the proliferation of diet culture on social media as key triggers, while warning that the true scale of the problem is masked by chronic under-diagnosis, since clinicians and patients alike rarely associate eating disorders with older women.