More Teenage Girls With Eating Disorders Wound Up in the E.R. During the Pandemic

During the pandemic, emergency rooms across the country reported an increase in visits from teenage girls dealing with diet and other disorders such as anxiety, depression, and stress. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report provides new details on the types of mental health problems that affect the adolescent generation.

Mental health experts hypothesize that the pandemic has made some young people feel isolated, lonely, and out of control. Emily Pulhar, a pediatric psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, said some have dealt with it by trying to control their behavior.

“You take a very vulnerable group and cause a pandemic,” she said. “Eating disorders are out of control.”

A CDC study found that the rate of eating disorder visits doubled among teenage girls, with pandemic-related risk factors such as “lack of structure in daily life, mental distress, and altered food availability.” It states that it was caused by.

Authorities said the increase in tic disorder was “atypical.” These disorders often appear early and are common in boys. But CDC, Strengthen speculation from other clinicians and researchersSome teenage girls have seen this phenomenon prevalent on social media, especially TikTok, and said they may have tics.

“Exposure to pandemic stress or severe tics highlighted on social media platforms may be associated with increased visits to tics and tic-like behaviors in adolescent women,” CDC said. Is writing.

In the related report, CDC also said on Friday An increase in visits due to mental health problems occurred as the emergency room reported an overall sharp decrease in visits during the pandemic. Compared to 2019, overall visits decreased by 51% in 2020 and 22% in 2021. This is partly due to family delays in care and reduced physical injury from activities such as swimming and running.

Visits to the overall emergency room for mental health decreased among all adolescents up to the age of 17. There was an increase in certain illnesses, especially among teenage girls.

In a broader sense, the surge in adolescent mental health distress appears to have intensified during the pandemic, but it began earlier. Visits to the emergency room for young people associated with depression, anxiety, and similar problems increased by 28% between 2007 and 2018. According to another report by the surgeon general.

In a Friday report, the CDC said teenage boys’ visits to mental health-related emergency rooms decreased in both 2020 and 2021 compared to 2019. However, the CDC also had subtle data and boys’ visit patterns depended on specific mental health and duration, as did girls.

“These gender differences can represent differences in needs, perceptions, and behaviors seeking medical care,” the CDC writes.

For teenage girls, in 2020, weekly emergency room visits increased due to diet and tic disorders. And for those conditions and obsessive-compulsive disorder in 2021. During January 2022, the CDC also said there was an increase in anxiety, trauma and stress-related problems.