Since the Pandemic: Increased Numbers of Children in Inpatient Care for Eating Disorders
By Emily Hellichius
NEWS • The number of in care patients in Region Västra Götaland with eating disorders has increased in the last six years. The impact of the pandemic with isolation can be one of the reasons, according to André Lange, Chief Physician in the treatment of eating disorders among young people.
The number of patients among children and young people with eating disorders has increased in Sweden in recent years. The numbers confirm that the trend is showing in the Västra Götaland Region as well.
Anorexia nervosa is the eating disorder that affects most children, and ten-year-old girls are particularly affected. The disease involves a distorted body image and self-starvation. In Sweden, it is the psychiatric illness from which most children die.
In Västra Götaland Region, in the last ten years, the number of patients hospitalised for treatment in the ages zero to nine years old has increased from zero patients to four children receiving urgent treatment. The highest increase has been in the age group ten to 14 years old in inpatient care.
Inpatient care is often necessary for patients with very low weight, serious somatic complications, and when the eating disorder does not improve with other treatment, the Västra Götaland Region states.
Alice*, 26 years old, developed the illness anorexia in her early teenage years. Her journey to become healthy took years and many visits to the hospital for both physical and psychological treatment.
“Even an emergency admission to the hospital was not a clear enough signal. I knew I was too thin, but the inner voice was too strong. It wasn’t until I was older that I realised that all my ways of deceiving others about food were just different ways of deceiving myself from getting healthy,” she says.
Different Risk Factors
There are many reasons for contracting an eating disorder. Research shows that genetic vulnerability, as well as certain personality traits, such as perfectionism and compulsiveness, can contribute to a person becoming ill.
Puberty can also represent a trigger, as many girls can gain weight when their bodies change. Social media, society’s ideals and the fact that children take in impressions they cannot problematise are also reasons for early illness.
After the pandemic started, there has been an increase in children contracting an eating disorder. It is difficult to answer what the increase in the number of patients in recent years is due to, but chief physician André Lange suspects that the isolation of children and young people during the pandemic may be a factor.
“Ruled by the numbers of the scale”
Leah*, raised in the central parts of Gothenburg, was twelve when she started to compare her body with others.
“The list of foods that were forbidden to eat got longer and longer and the number on the scale became lower and lower. At the same time, there were comments about how beautiful I had become”, Lea says and continues:
“I felt good to hear that. How much ‘better’ I was when I was thin. My days were ruled by the number on the scale.”
Today, at age 23, she still struggles with body image – but she feels strongly about staying healthy for her younger self, and emphasises that she hopes the trend of more children being hospitalised for eating disorders will decrease.
*The names of the women interviewed have been changed for their privacy.