COVID Pandemic Associated With Anorexia in Canadian Youth

The COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with the development of anorexia nervosa in Canadian children and adolescents, data suggest.

Preliminary results of the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program (CPSP) indicate that the pandemic has been a precipitating factor in the development of anorexia nervosa in almost half of children and adolescents studied. The pandemic also has precipitated hospitalizations for anorexia in more than one third of cases.

"Data globally, and certainly our data here in Canada, have shown a real increase in healthcare utilization with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic," study author Debra Katzman, MD, professor of pediatrics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and the University of Toronto, told Medscape Medical News. "And when I talk about healthcare utilization, I'm talking about hospitalizations for eating disorders."

The data were included in the 2021 results of the CPSP, which were published September 14.

Focus on Appearance

CPSP is a collaboration between the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Pediatric Society that consists of a network of 2800 pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists across Canada. The latest results include surveillance studies on 14 diseases and conditions, with data collected during various periods.

From April 2020 to May 2021, researchers identified 1800 COVID-19 cases in children and collected detailed information on 1456 of them, including 405 cases hospitalized with pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS). The median age of hospitalized cases was 3.2 years for SARS-CoV-2 infection and 5.4 years for PIMS.

Katzman and colleagues observed 118 first-time hospitalizations for anorexia nervosa between September 1 and December 31, 2021. More than 90% of reported cases were female, with 66% of verified cases in teens aged 14-17 years and the remainder in adolescents aged 11-13 years.

In 49% of cases, the reporting physician identified the COVID-19 pandemic as a precipitating factor in the development of anorexia nervosa. In 37% of cases, the reporting physician identified the pandemic as having precipitated the anorexia-related hospitalization.

Last year, a cross-sectional analysis of children in Canada reported that monthly hospitalizations for anorexia nervosa increased from 7.5 to 20 from March through November 2020. The monthly rate in the CPSP study was closer to 30 for first-time hospitalizations.

Katzman said that the findings about anorexia nervosa didn't surprise her. "There was so much disruption and [so many] restrictions to young peoples' daily routines — closures of schools and recreational activities — they lost regular connection with their peers, and they lost extracurricular and social activities," she said. "That led to heightened anxiety and depression and really a lack of control."

Adolescents and teens were also spending more time on social media than they were before the pandemic, she noted. "They were looking at themselves all the time, so they were getting preoccupied with their body image. There was a heightened focus on appearance, and I think that things like public-health mitigation strategies — things like hand washing, social distancing, mask wearing — may have impacted the psychological well-being of young people."

The closure of outpatient facilities, long waiting lists to get into facilities that were opened, and "coronaphobia" about going to physicians' offices and emergency departments compounded the problem, Katzman added.

The long-term effects of COVID and eating disorders in children are unknown, Katzman said. "This is sort of a wake-up call for the healthcare system that during times of stress or pandemics or crises, these kinds of things can happen, and we need to be prepared to provide the resources for vulnerable populations moving forward," she said.

Heightened Anxiety

Commenting on the data for Medscape, Margaret Thew, APNP, director of the eating disorders program at Children's Wisconsin in Milwaukee, said that isolation due to school closures and negative social media messages created the "perfect storm" for eating disorders in adolescents and teenagers because of higher rates of anxiety and depression. Thew was not involved in the research.

The storm is not over yet, she said. "What everyone needs to keep in mind is that we still have this very heightened state of anxiety and depression…for adolescents, teenagers, and preteens alike," Thew said in an interview, "and we know that many of them are not coping with their anxiety very well."

In her experience, since the start of the pandemic, the average age of pediatric patients with eating disorders declined from 16 to 15 years, and the youngest age declined from 12 to 11 years.

Overall, the CPSP results show that children are affected by mental health issues at an earlier age than before the pandemic, said Thew. "Years ago, we wouldn't have thought that an 8-year-old needed to be screened for some of these risk factors, but now we're definitely getting more younger children who are struggling, and I think it's taking too long for them to get the care they need because it's being overlooked," she said.

The report was funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, Bethanys Hope Foundation, CHEO Research Institute, and Children's Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba. Katzman and Thew have no relevant disclosures.

Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program 2021 Results. Published September 14, 2022. Full text

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Cite this: COVID Pandemic Associated With Anorexia in Canadian Youth - Medscape - Sep 28, 2022.