MONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) — A new study confirms yet another consequence of the pandemic for children and teenagers: Eating disorders, and hospitalizations for them, rose sharply in 2020.
The study of six hospitals across Canada found new diagnoses of anorexia nearly doubled during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. And the rate of hospitalization among those patients was almost threefold higher, versus pre-pandemic years.
The findings add to three smaller studies from the United States and Australia — all of which found an increase in eating disorder hospitalizations during the pandemic.
The current study, however, focused only on kids with a new diagnosis of anorexia, said lead researcher Dr. Holly Agostino, who directs the eating disorders program at Montreal Children’s Hospital.
Those young people, she said, may have been struggling with body image, anxiety or other mental health concerns before the pandemic — then met their tipping point during it.
“I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that we took away kids’ daily routines,” Agostino said.
With everything disrupted — including meals, exercise, sleep patterns and connections with friends — vulnerable children and teens may have turned to food restriction. And since depression and anxiety often “overlap” with eating disorders, Agostino said, any worsening in those mental health conditions could have contributed to anorexia in some kids, too.
At any given time, about 0.4% of young women and 0.1% of young men are suffering from anorexia, according to the New York City-based National Eating Disorders Association. The eating disorder is marked by severe restriction in calories and the foods a person will eat — as well as an intense fear of weight gain.
The new findings, published online Dec. 7 in JAMA Network Open, are based on data from six children’s hospitals in five Canadian provinces.
Agostino’s team looked at new diagnoses of anorexia among 9- to 18-year-olds between March 2020 (when pandemic restrictions took hold) and November 2020. They compared those figures with pre-pandemic years, going back to 2015.
During the pandemic, hospitals averaged about 41 new anorexia cases per month — up from about 25 in pre-pandemic times, the study found. And more newly diagnosed kids were ending up in the hospital: There were 20 hospitalizations a month in 2020, versus about eight in prior years.
Dr. Natalie Prohaska is with the Comprehensive Eating Disorders Program at the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, in Ann Arbor.
In a study earlier this year, she and her colleagues reported their hospital saw a spike in eating disorder hospitalizations over the first 12 months of the pandemic. Admissions for eating disorders more than doubled, versus 2017 through 2019.
Prohaska said the new findings underscore the fact that across countries, “adolescents are struggling” with mental health issues.
She agreed the major disruptions to kids’ normal routines likely contributed to the rise in eating disorders.
Those who were already dealing with body image issues were suddenly “caught in a vacuum,” Prohaska said, and that may have exacerbated the situation.
More from this section
Plus, she noted, kids and adults alike were hearing dire messages about pandemic weight gain.
“There were even references to the ‘COVID 15,'” Prohaska said. “Kids didn’t need that on top of everything else.”
Studies so far have looked at eating disorder trends in 2020. It’s not clear how things stand now, with kids back in school.
But both Agostino and Prohaska said their eating-disorder programs remain busier than pre-pandemic times.
“Wait-list times are through the roof,” Agostino said.
The programs are seeing kids who were diagnosed earlier in the pandemic, as well as a continuing stream of new cases.
“Eating disorders take time to brew,” Prohaska noted. So there are kids just coming into treatment who say the pandemic was a “trigger” for them, she said.
Agostino made the same point, saying eating disorders “do not go from 0 to 100.”
That, she said, also means parents have time to notice early warning signs, such as a child becoming “rigid” about food choices or exercise, or preoccupied with weight.
Parents can talk to their kids about those issues — reassuring them that it’s fine to skip an exercise routine, for example — and bring any concerns to their pediatrician, according to Agostino.
She said pediatricians should also have eating disorders on their radar, and screen for them if a child or teenager has lost weight rapidly.
More information
The National Eating Disorders Association has more on eating disorder warning signs.
SOURCES: Holly Agostino, MD, program director, Eating Disorders Program, Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Canada; Natalie Prohaska, MD, Comprehensive Eating Disorders Program, University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Ann Arbor, Mich.; JAMA Network Open, Dec. 7, 2021, online
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
