Eating Disorders: Why Is This Deadly Crisis Still So Under-Addressed?

Eating disorders are the 2nd most deadly mental condition
Eating disorders are the 2nd most deadly mental condition. Credit | Getty images

United States: It is estimated that at least 9 percent of the US population will develop an eating disorder at one point in their lifetime: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder or ARFID.

That has been rising and has further been on the rise during the COVID pandemic, with emergency department visits linked to those conditions up seven-fold.

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The forced pandemic-related confinement that left many adolescents at home with parents during this period hampered development, said Dr. Tracy Richmond, a pediatrician, and director of the Eating Disorders Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

These conditions, as with many other mental health conditions, may have been made worse because of the isolation, uncertainty, and disruption of children’s daily lives, salon.com reported.

“We’ve had patients who have remained ill for years,” Richmond added while saying the pandemic “was just an unbelievable psychic wound.”

Both eating disorders are different, and each of them has its own approach to treatment.

It is in these patient groups that there may be a lot of comorbidity where clients are suffering from more than one psychiatric disorder, have a history of trauma, or have barriers to treatment.

These diseases are psychological disorders that involuntarily involve physical aspects impacting the organs along with the brain to boot regarding care.

Treatment is also often complicated because patients with eating disorders have to get close to the food they are afraid of each day to get the nutrition they need to survive, and one of the diagnostic criteria for anorexia, for instance, is a lack of understanding of the severity of the condition.

However, the risk is high when people are in need of care. Eating disorders are the second deadliest mental health disorders after substance use disorder, but almost fifty percent are unlikely to ever receive treatment.

Some of the reasons are that there are few specialty facilities available, particularly in rural areas, and the centers are not at capacity.

Stigma also remains very much rooted in these conditions that have previously been said to impact rich white girls only.

According to Dr. Ariel Beccia, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital who works with the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders, “There are really, really large barriers to care experienced by youth of color more broadly, and that, in turn, can exacerbate inequities by prolonging the course of an eating disorder and exacerbating symptoms,” salon.com reported.