According to a study published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, there has been a large increase in diagnoses of eating disorders and episodes of self-harm among adolescent girls in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. The study, based on an analysis of the electronic health records of more than 9 million patients aged 10 to 24 in the UK between 2010 and 2022, showed that since March 2020, dietary choices for older women based on past trends Disorders were 42 percent higher than expected. 32 percent higher for those ages 13-16, and 17-19.
Females aged 13-16 also had the largest increase in self-harm, with the number of incidents 38 per cent higher than expected. In contrast, there was no evidence of an increase in the incidence of self-harm among women in other age groups, and no increase in rates of eating disorders or self-harm was observed among men.
In addition, the study showed that socioeconomic differences have widened since the start of the pandemic: since March 2020, an eating disorder diagnosis was 52 percent higher than expected for women living in the least deprived communities, while It was 22 percent higher for those living there. most deprived areas.
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Self-harm and eating disorders, as well as major health problems in their own right, are coping mechanisms that often indicate underlying psychological distress, and they share many risk factors.
“The diagnosis of eating disorders and self-harm among adolescent girls during the pandemic is likely to be compounded by a mix of issues such as social isolation, anxiety arising from changing routines, disruption of education, “There has been an increase in unhealthy social media influence and clinical awareness,” said lead author Pearl Mok, from the University of Manchester.
“Our study is large, but episodes of self-harm not treated by health services were not recorded in our data, so the increase in the incidence of self-harm may be even greater than what we observed,” he said. ” They said.
University child and adolescent psychiatrist and co-investigator Shruti Garg said: “The surprising increase in eating disorder diagnoses and self-harm episodes among adolescent females highlights the urgent need to improve early access to services and timely intervention.” Is.”