Eating disorders: the legacy of Covid 19

Translated by Alessandra Fumagalli 

Covid 19 seems a nightmare came to an end, but today we are fighting against what it has left.  

This virus has indeed damaged various society’s sectors and branches: one of the most important is the mental health. In the first six months of the pandemic, eating disorders are increased by 40%.

But what are “eating disorders” or, as an acronym, ED and why have we registered an impressive increase in these cases? Firstly, they are defined as “pathological obsessive behaviors towards food, with severe organic repercussions”. 

The most alarming cases and the most spread cases of ED are: firstly, anorexia nervosa, that is a strong food restriction with the aim of losing a great quantity of weight; secondly binge eating disorder happens when a person eats, but then he feels a sudden strong sense of guilt and this disorder is often linked to another one, which is the bulimia nervosa, that is when the person who gorges itself, wants to vomit what he or she has eaten before. It is easy to realize that these problems are really dangerous if the patients are neither helped nor supported in the right ways. 

But the question is: how do these disorderes arise? 

The easiest answer is that there isn’t a specific reason why a person suffers from this disorder, but there are different ones: it is a complex system that arises due to different reasons according to the biography of each individuals. It is fair to underline that those who seem to suffer most from this disease are adolescents and young adults, particularly women, but it must not be underestimated that this issue affects also men. In Italy, 5% of population suffers from this disorder: 3 million Italians, whose 59% is distributed among 13-25 years old. 

The raise in these disorders has been strongly influences by an easy combination: Covid obliged us to lock into our houses and to use a device that helps us to socialize: the social media. 

On one hand were the social media a pleasant distraction during this time, but on the other hand they were a dangerous weapon. It is a truth that Covid didn’t have to show: what we find on the internet isn’t always real. Photos that we see each day have an impact on our view of “good” and “real” that can lead to these issues, that play an important role not only among teenagers, but on the whole society.

This is one of the numerous legacies that the pandemic left: a know that won’t be easy to untie. 

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