Young girls warned of 'the dangerous lure of the desire to be thin' at inquest of 17-year-old who put weights in her bra to fool relatives and died weighing just 4 stone

• Emma Carpenter died weighing four stone after three-year anorexia battle
• 17-year-old hid eating disorder from relatives by putting weights in clothes
• Coroner at inquest into her death warned other girls to be careful of illness
• She said youngsters should 'beware of dangerous lure of desire to be thin'

By Emma Glanfield for MailOnline

Published: 05:42 EST, 14 July 2015 | Updated: 06:06 EST, 14 July 2015

Emma Carpenter, from Nottingham, passed away three days before Christmas in 2006 weighing just four stone and with a body mass index of only 10.5

Young girls have been warned about the 'dangerous lure of the desire to be thin' at the inquest of a 17-year-old girl who put weights in her bra to make herself appear heavier before she died from anorexia.

Emma Carpenter, from Nottingham, passed away three days before Christmas in 2006 weighing just four stone and with a body mass index of only 10.5 after losing more than a stone in just eight days.

The teenager had battled an eating disorder for three years and her condition was being monitored by Thorneywood Inpatient Unit, in Nottingham.

However, she wasn't admitted to hospital until 10 days before she died from multiple organ failure, weighing just four stone.

A coroner has now warned other young girls to avoid the 'dangerous temptation' to be thin.

Stephanie Haskey, assistant coroner for Nottinghamshire, said at the inquest into Miss Carpenter's death yesterday that relatives and healthcare professionals should be 'highly vigilant' to the signs of anorexia.

She said: 'I would urge young people, especially adolescent girls, to beware of the dangerous lure of the desire to be thin - inflicted upon them relentlessly by the many irresponsible producers of unnatural images of women.

'They should resist the temptation to falsely define their worth by reference to the size or shape of their bodies.

'I would also urge all parents, relatives, healthcare professionals and teachers to be highly vigilant for signs and symptoms of anorexia among the children and young people in their care.

'It is a devastating illness capable of causing immense distress and physical harm which feeds upon the secrets and deceptions it creates.

'Emma was a bright, hardworking and talented young woman capable of giving and inspiring strong friendship and love and who had much to offer to society.'

She ruled that 'avoidable delays' in admitting Miss Carpenter to hospital had contributed to her death.

The inquest heard how Miss Carpenter died at Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre on December 22, 2006.

The former house captain at Nottingham Girls' High School had been admitted as an inpatient at Thorneywood Unit.

She remained as an outpatient for almost three years - despite her eating disorder rarely showing signs of improving – but was finally admitted to the Queen's Medical Centre on December 12, 2006 after a sudden deterioration in her condition.

The teenager died 10 days later in intensive care due to organ failure with a BMI of just 10.5. A healthy BMI is 18.5 to 25.

Miss Carpenter, from Nottingham, passed away at Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham (pictured above) just three days before Christmas in 2006 weighing just four stone and with a body mass index of only 10.5

The court heard she had moved out of her mother's home in the summer of 2005 because she could not cope with her mum's reliance on alcohol. Her mother, Karen, has since died.

She moved in with her grandparents during the summer of 2005 and following a brief improvement, her health began to slip again in the Autumn of 2006

The inquest was told how school nurse Sue Wilding had recorded Miss Carpenter's weight as six stone on November 13, 2006.

Fighting back tears, she told the court previously: 'I weighed Emma twice and it still lays heavily on my heart.

'It still hurts me now and I think about it all the time.'

However, after deciding to strip weigh her granddaughter herself eight days later, grandmother Eileen Flowerdew found the teenager's weight had plummeted to just four stone.

Miss Carpenter's mother had previously told hospital staff that she suspected her daughter hid weights in her clothes to make herself appear heavier.

Miss Haskey confirmed her belief the teenager had panicked and decided to falsify her weight recordings when she returned to school.

Recording a narrative verdict, the coroner said a mixture of missed opportunities by medical staff and resistance from the teenager and her family to admit her for inpatient care contributed to her death.

She said that if she had been treated before September 2005, 'on balance she would have survived'.

Miss Carpenter was a former house captain at Nottingham Girls' High School (pictured) but hid her illness

She added that future deaths of a similar nature could happen unless a number of concerns were addressed, including more beds for mentally ill patients and funding for school nurses.

It has taken nine years before an inquest into Miss Carpenter's death by Nottingham Coroner's Court could be concluded - following previous investigations by Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust and the Health Ombudsman.

Speaking after the inquest the teenager's father Noel Hand, 61, who now lives on the Isle of Wight, said: 'It has been a long, long nine years.

'When your beloved daughter dies you just want to know how and why she died - I was not getting any answers until now.

'This is a growing illness and it needs to be tackled and there needs to be funding there to help young girls with this awful illness.'

Comments (8)

Share what you think

• Newest
• Oldest
• Best rated
• Worst rated

 View all

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

 View all

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now