COVID-19: Pandemic worsens eating disorders
The Guardian
Psychiatrists have warned of a “tsunami” of eating disorder patients amid data showing soaring numbers of people experiencing anorexia and bulimia in England during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Agnes Ayton, the chair of the Eating Disorder Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the number of people experiencing problems had risen sharply, with conditions such as anorexia thriving in the isolation of lockdown.
“We expect the tsunami [of patients] is still coming. We don’t think it has been and gone,” she said.
She also said that in Oxford, where she works, about 20 percent of people admitted were usually urgent referrals, but this proportion had shot up to 80 percent.