NEW YORK (AP) Many hospital beds are full. Waiting lists for outpatient treatment are bulging. And teens and adults seeking help for eating disorders are often finding it takes months to get an appointment.
The pandemic created treacherous conditions for eating disorders, leading to a surge of new cases and relapses that is not abating as restrictions are loosened and COVID-19 cases subside in many places, doctors and other specialists say. We are absolutely seeing massive increases, said Jennifer Wildes, an associate psychiatry professor and director of an outpatient eating disorders program at the University of Chicago Medicine. Some patients are waiting four to five months to get treatment such as psychotherapy and sometimes medication. Waits usually lasted only a few weeks pre-pandemic, Wildes said.
New US cases fall to numbers not seen in almost a year; massive increases in eating disorders, expert says: Latest COVID-19 updates Jordan Culver, John Bacon and Jorge L. Ortiz, USA TODAY
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New coronavirus infections across the U.S. have tumbled to rates not seen in more than 11 months, sparking optimism that vaccination campaigns are stemming both severe COVID-19 cases and the spread of the virus.
Hospitalizations and deaths steadily declined last week. Hugs and unmasked crowds returned to the White House, a Mardi Gras-style parade marched through Alabama’s port city of Mobile, and states that have stuck to pandemic-related restrictions readied to drop them. The seven-day average for new cases dropped below 30,000 per day, a number not seen in 11 months. The average number of deaths over the last seven days also dropped to 552.
Some patients say ‘’my life feels out of control’’ because of the pandemic and they resort to binge eating as a coping mechanism, Lampert said. Others have taken the message ‘’don’t gain the pandemic 15’’ to the extreme, restricting their diets to the point of anorexia.
The program offers in-patient treatment and outpatient programs in several states, which switched to teletherapy when the pandemic began. That has continued, although some in-person treatment has resumed.
’’We’ve seen an increase across the board,” in patients of all races, adult, teens and sometimes even young kids, she said. That includes LGBTQ people, who tend to have higher rates of eating disorders than other groups. Women and girls are more commonly affected than men.