Pandemic reality causes eating disordersExBulletin

Audi Cornish, Byline: Eating Disorders affect nearly 1 in 10 Americans throughout their lives, even if they have severe dietary restrictions. As reported by NPR Yuki Noguchi, a combination of stress, social isolation, and food insecurity is causing many people.

BYLINE Yuki Noguchi: Due to a pandemic, I found that Stephanie Parker had an eating disorder for most of his 34 years.

Stephanie Parker: My eating disorder started when I was 6 years old. It may have started earlier and I don’t remember.

Noguchi: At first she starved herself. At other times she ate huge amounts. Everything came to my mind this spring. Alone in her studio apartment in New York City, she watched COVID-19 tear through the city. It fueled fear, trauma of the past, and her obsessive-compulsive disorder. She then realized that her relationship with food was life-threatening.

Parker: OCD and my anxiety made my eating disorder more severe. And to me, it meant that I became obsessed with cleaning everything and then checking in myself to see if it was worth eating for myself.

Noguchi: Cleaning up frenzy when you’re hungry doesn’t mean that you’ve lost the power to lift forks.

Parker: I’m scared of food. I would-I was afraid that food might make me sick because it wasn’t clean enough.

Noguchi: Eating disorders are common during the pandemic. Hotline calls to the American Eating Disorders Association have risen 70% to 80% in recent months. For many, diet is a form of control and a coping mechanism associated with stress. Food shortages and stockpiles help cause anxiety about eating and overeating. Claire Misco is the CEO of the association.

Claire Misco: I know that eating disorders are strongly associated with trauma. Many people with eating disorders have a history of trauma. And this is, as you know, collective trauma.

Noguchi: That is also a deadly threat. Eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of any psychiatric diagnosis, outweighed only by opioid use disorders. In a recent study, almost two-thirds of patients with anorexia had worsening symptoms. About one-third of the much more common bulimia patients reported more episodes. Christine Peat is the co-author of the study and was published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders in July.

CHRISTINE PEAT: Many people in our study talked about the concern that living in a triggering environment would exacerbate eating disorders due to lack of structure and lack of social support. And now, the sense of that structure has just come out of the window. This will give you a structure that fits around your meals and snacks.

Noguchi: Despite the boom in teletherapy, Pete discovered that it didn’t reach anyone.

PEAT: Unfortunately, people with color know that about half of whites are treated.

Noguchi: Black New Yorker Stephanie Parker was like that until recently. She says her race is a big reason why she didn’t recognize her problem until recently.

Parker: The words used around eating disorders were about white girls with eating disorders. The story of a lean girl or a girl I heard throwing in the toilet.

Noguchi: She looked relatively healthy. For decades she ignored it.

Parker: In my head, I felt like I wasn’t one of those girls. This does not affect me as I do not fit into any of those categories.

Noguchi: Even for those who are recovering, the struggle remains a reality. Grace Segers is a CBS political correspondent. She spends days near stocked refrigerators that make it difficult to keep bulimia in the past. She has almost rekindled recently.

Grace Segers: I literally sat on the floor in the bathroom and told myself over and over again. This does not make you feel better.

Noguchi: She stopped it. But…

SEGERS: The recurrence happens to me whether the condition is right or wrong. So I feel like I can’t stand myself.

Noguchi: She says the daily battle is exhausted.

Yuki Noguchi, NPR News.

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