There is a great need to provide support and counseling to children and young people who suffer from eating disorders or who deliberately harm themselves.

This is something that Laila Walther, director of the Eating Disorders and Self-Harm Association, is well aware of, and she is therefore extremely grateful for a donation of DKK 100,000 from Sol og Strand and Kjeld Sol og Strand Foundation.

"This donation will enable us to expand the capacity of our chat counseling service and thus respond to many more of those who contact us. At the same time, counselors need to be equipped to engage in dialogue with the youngest children, as unfortunately there are more and more of them," says Laila Walther.

We receive inquiries from children as young as seven. They often contact us via our chat service when their eating disorder or self-harm becomes urgent. But precisely because they are so young, this places special demands on our counselors. For obvious reasons, children do not have the same language and level of reflection as young people and adults, so we have to develop a different model for our counseling services for the youngest, she says.

An analysis conducted by Momentum for the Local Government Association shows that the number of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 suffering from anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, or other eating disorders has risen from 3,053 to 6,132 in the period from 2007 to 2022. Similarly, from 2021 to 2022, the association has seen a 16 percent increase in the number of inquiries.

In addition to providing more counseling, the association is working to establish a self-harm task force to help boarding schools and educational institutions deal with students who deliberately harm themselves. Furthermore, since the turn of the year, the association has expanded its services to relatives of children and young people with eating disorders or self-harm issues.

A dream come true

In 1979, Margit and Kjeld Andersen established Sol og Strand A/S. The couple has now transferred ownership to a foundation based on a desire to preserve and develop the company in Danish hands and to support charitable and local causes. And it is a dream come true, the couple admits.

"We are delighted that we can help the Eating Disorders and Self-Harm Association increase its counseling capacity and thus hopefully help even more children and young people. We are also pleased that, through the fund, we can help make a difference for others," say Margit and Kjeld Andersen.

In total, the fund has donated just under three million kroner this year, and this amount is expected to increase in the future.