Aragon will implement a digital application in 30 schools to detect eating disorders

The digital tool, promoted by the APE Foundation, consists of a video game that adapts the test used by the scientific community to identify this disease to adolescent language.

After four years of research, Aragon has a test adapted for adolescents to detect eating disorders which children can complete in five minutes, a scientifically validated digital and gamified tool after being tested in four schools in the region. It is the ApeTest application, powered by the APE Foundation for the prevention and eradication of this serious disease, consisting of a game which transforms it into a virtual experience and adapts it to youth language test scoff  that the scientific community uses to detect problematic behaviors and possible cases of bulimia and anorexia in advance.

Thirty Aragonese educational centers Twenty schools in Zaragoza, five in Huesca, and five in Teruel will progressively implement this application throughout the next academic year. It is primarily aimed at 8th and 9th grade students. The goal is for it to be available to all schools that request it. game, participants They interact with two avatars, named Jorge and Pilar, while answering the questionnaire questions in a way that is pleasant and familiar to them.

The project has been developed by professionals from the Lozano Blesa University Clinical Hospital and the Aragon Health Research Institute, and has also had the collaboration of the Department of Education in bringing it to the classrooms. 

The study to test its effectiveness was carried out between January 2024 and November 2025 with a sample of 485 students from first to third year of ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education) from the institutes Ramón Pignatelli, Francisco de Goya, Jerónimo Zurita and Valdespartera with a balanced distribution between girls (253) and boys (232). 

El Head of Service at the Clinical Hospital and principal investigator, Pedro RuizHe emphasized that the results obtained are not only comparable to traditional paper questionnaires, but even better. Thanks to this application, the following issues have been detected in the four public centers where it has been used: 68 risk situations and 25 cases of Eating Disorders (ED), Of these, 10 had anorexia, 14 had bulimia, and one was unspecified. These diagnoses were confirmed after all tests were carried out, including a Clinical interview with a mental health expert.

Regarding the number of identified cases, he explained that the sample of 485 fewer cases is not representative enough to extrapolate conclusions about the incidence of this disease. The latest epidemiological research, dating back to 2000, reveals that 4,5% of adolescent girls between the ages of 12 and 18 suffered from a diagnosed disorder with the clinical interview and 16% of the girls of these ages scored at risk, a percentage that drops to 3,3% among boys. 

Ruiz acknowledged that, as with any self-administered tool, there is a possibility that some teenagers may withhold information in the ApeTest, although he pointed out that The system leaves out "very few cases" and constitutes a useful resource for improving early detection.

El application questionnaire corresponds to the acronym scoff  of the initials of the questions in each item in English: if they have been triggered vomiting (sick), Yeah They have lost control over food that they ingest (control), Yeah They have lost more than 6 kilos during the last three months (out weight), if it they feel fat despite being told they are thin (fetus) and if they feel that food dominates their life (food). To these issues, the Aragonese team has added two more that they consider relevant at these ages, the image of oneself and the physical exercise.

65% of patients are cured

La eating disorders unit of Aragonn, which centralizes care for the child and adolescent population at the Clinical Hospital and the Inocencia Jiménez Specialty Center in Zaragoza for the entire Community, It handles an average of 100 new cases each year.The highest number, 140, was recorded in 2022 after the coronavirus pandemic, but since then it has been decreasing with 103 in 2023, 104 in 2024 and 89 last year, according to data provided by the head of the Clinical Hospital Service.

Ruiz has detailed The age of onset of these problems "has dropped in the Community from between 14 and 15 years to 13"He commented, as a hopeful fact, that although "they are very serious diseases, with high mortality in cases that go badly," 65% of patients are cured with treatments that can last between two and five years.

The president of the APE Foundation, Maite Zapata, who is also responsible for the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry inpatient unit at the Clinical Hospital, has stressed that Early diagnosis is "key to prognosis and recovery", promotes the restoration of "the child's physical and mental health" and It prevents the disease from becoming chronic..

The manager of the Aragonese Health Service, José Ignacio Castaño, has emphasized that this is complex pathologies which affect not only nutrition, but also the physical, emotional and social health of those who suffer from it and "the sooner they are identified, the sooner intervention can take place and the better the chances of recovery."

For her part, the Minister of Education, Carmen Susín, has described this tool , the "pioneering and effective"For use in schools, always with parental permission, the guidance and emotional well-being teams will be available. The tool generates an automatic and immediate score and activates alerts if there is a suspected risk. This information will be sent to the counselors so they can inform the parents and facilitate a rapid referral to healthcare services. The app was developed by the Aragonese company Imascono.

Source: Heraldo de Aragón