In an open letter they highlight at least 1.25m people in the UK are living with an eating disorder yet not a single death was recorded in the latest ONS mortality tables because of how deaths are certified and coded.

Hope Virgo, mental health campaigner and secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eating Disorders, said:  ‘We are calling on the Government to introduce a national eating disorder strategy and a national mortality register for them. Without accurate recordings, effective action is impossible.'

The letter calls for a national approach to eating disorder mortality, including publication of deaths where an eating disorder is recorded as either an underlying or contributory cause, alongside improved guidance for death certification and coding.

Signatories include BEAT, MIND, campaigner Hope Virgo, and MPs Dr Simon Opher, Richard Quigley and Wera Hobhouse.