Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Eating Disorders in Teen Girls Doubled During the Pandemic

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedPage Today.

According to a new study, eating disorders in teen girls doubled during the pandemic, and increases were also seen in anxiety disorders, ADHD, and depression.

Among teenage girls, the prevalence of anxiety disorders, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and eating disorders all increased, with the prevalence of diagnosed eating disorders more than doubling, from 0.26% in March 2020 to 0.36% in October 2020 and 0.56% in March 2022, reported Loreen Straub, MD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues.

"Female youth, especially female adolescents, represented the most vulnerable population with regard to marked increases in the prevalence of MH [mental health] diagnoses during the pandemic, the most pronounced being the prevalence of eating disorders," the authors wrote in a research letter published in JAMA Network Open.

Asked what could be behind the rise in mental health diagnoses, Straub said she and her colleagues could only speculate. The pandemic disrupted nearly everyone's daily routines, increased social isolation and financial strain on families, and reduced healthcare access. Among younger people in particular, it led to a "general lack of structure" that may also have been a contributor, she added.

In all, about 1.7 million youths contributed data to each calendar month; 440,722 were girls ages 6 to 12, 410,373 were girls ages 13 to 18, 461,331 were boys ages 6 to 12, and 426,358 were boys ages 13 to 18.

One limitation to the study was that it included only commercially insured youths; therefore, "patterns might look different" for publicly or uninsured populations, Straub said.

Source: MedPage Today
https://www.medpagetoday.com/pediatrics/eatingdisorders/104649

Exposure Therapy to Feared Foods May Help Kids with Eating Disorders

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Whether you're afraid of dogs, needles or enclosed spaces, one of the most effective interventions for this type of anxiety disorder is exposure therapy, in which you confront your fear in a safe environment. A new study led by researchers at Penn State College of Medicine finds that exposure therapy is also a promising treatment for adolescents with eating disorders. They found that exposure to feared foods—such as candy bars and pizza—helped kids who were in a partial hospitalization program for eating disorders experience decreased anxiety toward food.

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, approximately 30 million Americans will struggle with eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder and others, at some point in their lives. Adolescents and young adults are particularly vulnerable.

In the study, which was published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, researchers recruited 54 adolescents with a median age of 14 years who were participating in a partial hospitalization program for eating disorders. Each day, the clinical team exposed the patients to a feared food. For example, participants were given a full-sized candy bar on Mondays, a baked good such as a cookie on Tuesdays, pizza on Wednesdays, a dessert on Thursdays and a breakfast item such as pancakes on Fridays.

Overall, the team found that fears decreased significantly over time prior to exposure to feared foods.

"Our findings provide support for integrating food exposure into partial hospitalization programs for adolescents with eating disorders who are undergoing weight restoration," said Jamal Essayli, assistant professor of pediatrics and of psychiatry and behavioral health.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-exposure-therapy-foods-kids-disorders.html

One in Five Kids at Risk for Eating Disorder

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by WebMD.

More than 1 in 5 children worldwide are at risk of developing an eating disorder such as bulimia, anorexia, or binge eating, a new analysis suggests.

The study was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. Researchers analyzed data for 63,181 adolescents 6 to 18 years old from 16 countries to look for what is called “disordered eating.”

The researchers examined results from a widely used standardized eating disorder questionnaire called the Sick, Control, One, Fat, Food (SCOFF). When someone answers yes to two or more of the questions, the person is considered to have disordered eating, which “denotes a suspicion of an existing eating disorder,” the researchers wrote.

Overall, 22% of children replied yes to two or more of the questions. The proportion of children with disordered eating is likely even higher, the researchers explain, because children may hide symptoms “due to feelings of shame or stigmatization."

The findings are a dramatic shift from the estimation that 2.7% of people ages 13 to 18 have an eating disorder during their adolescent years.

The analysis showed that 30% of girls had disordered eating compared to 17% of boys. When looking at responses by age, the proportion of kids with disordered eating increased by 20 percentage points between the ages of 10 to 18.

Source: WebMD
https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20230222/1-in-5-kids-at-risk-for-eating-disorder-study

More Teens with Eating Disorders Wound up in ER During Pandemic

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Emergency rooms across the country have seen a surge in the number of teenage girls dealing with eating and other disorders, including anxiety, depression, and stress, during the pandemic, a new government report shows.

Mental health experts suspect the pandemic left many young people feeling isolated and lonely, said Emily Pluhar, a pediatric psychologist at Boston Children's Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School.

"You take a very vulnerable group and put on a global pandemic," she told The New York Times. "The eating disorders are out of control."

In the study, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the proportion of eating disorder visits doubled among teenage girls, set off by pandemic-related risk factors, such as the "lack of structure in daily routine, emotional distress and changes in food availability."

There was also an increase seen in tic disorders among teen girls, the report found.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/b-2-21-more-teens-with-eating-disorders-wound-up-in-er-during-pandemic-2656753316.html

Is There a Link Between Vaping and Eating Disorders in the Young?

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

College students who vape appear to be at higher risk of having an eating disorder, a new study suggests.

"The study's findings are especially relevant as we have seen a surge in referrals for eating disorders and substance use disorders during the pandemic," said study author Dr. Jason Nagata. He is an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

According to the researchers, an analysis of data from more than 51,000 U.S. college students found that those diagnosed with an eating disorder over their lifetime (such as anorexia or bulimia) were more likely to use electronic cigarettes. However, the study could not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Study author Kyle Ganson, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, said it's concerning to see more vaping among people with symptoms of eating disorders, because the two together can lead to other health complications, including those of the heart and lungs, as well as neurological problems.

Nicotine could be the common link between an eating disorder and vaping, Gaston said.

"Nicotine vaping may be used by individuals to support eating disorder behaviors and goals, such as suppressing appetite and catalyzing weight loss," Ganson said in a University of Toronto news release. But he warned that "nicotine vaping can lead to dependence and future polysubstance use."

The findings were published online in the journal Eating Behaviors.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/b-9-15-is-there-a-link-between-vaping-and-eating-disorders-in-the-young-2655019924.html

Hospitalizations for Eating Disorders Spike Among Adolescents During COVID

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on MedicalXpress.

The number of adolescents admitted to the hospital for severe illness from eating disorders has increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research suggests.

At one center, the number of hospital admissions among adolescents with eating disorders more than doubled during the first 12 months of the pandemic, according to the study that appears in a pre-publication of Pediatrics.

The 125 hospitalizations among patients ages 10-23 at Michigan Medicine in those 12 months reflect a significant increase over previous years, as admissions related to eating disorders during the same timeframe between 2017 and 2019 averaged 56 per year.

"These findings emphasize how profoundly the pandemic has affected young people, who experienced school closures, canceled extracurricular activities, and social isolation. Their entire worlds were turned upside down overnight," said lead author Alana Otto, M.D., M.P.H., an adolescent medicine physician at University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.

"For adolescents with eating disorders and those at risk for eating disorders, these significant disruptions may have worsened or triggered symptoms."

The study also suggests the rate of admissions at the institution steadily increased over time during the first year of the pandemic. The highest rates of admissions per month occurred between nine and 12 months after the pandemic began, with rates continuing to climb when the study period ended in March 2021.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-hospitalizations-disorders-spike-adolescents-covid.html

Childhood BMI Linked to Anorexia, Bulimia Later on Among Girls

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on StudyFinds.

Among adolescents, body image can be a very fragile thing. A new report finds eating disorders not only impact those trying to lose weight but can also affect children who are already skinny. Researchers say girls with a low body mass index (BMI) early on in childhood may be at a high risk of developing anorexia nervosa later on. Conversely, young girls with a high BMI are more at risk for bulimia nervosa.

“By examining the records of thousands of girls over their lifetime in national health registers, we have discovered early warning profiles that could signal girls at risk for anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa”, says lead author Dr. Britt Wang Jensen from Denmark’s Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital in a media release. “The difference in childhood BMI of girls who later developed eating disorders started to emerge at an early age. These results highlight the importance of regularly monitoring weight and height during childhood to identify these patterns as early as possible.”

Danish researchers analyzed data pertaining to 66,576 girls from the Copenhagen School Health Records Register (born between 1960 and 1996). Those records included information on height and weight measured during annual school health examinations between ages seven to 13. Meanwhile, researchers tracked specific bulimia and anorexia diagnoses using the Danish National Patient Register and the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register.

The analysis showed “inverse associations” between childhood BMI and anorexia later on. For instance, take two girls with a BMI difference of about five pounds. The somewhat heavier girl had a 50 percent higher risk of developing bulimia than the leaner child in later life. At age 13, the risk was 33 percent higher.

Additionally, in comparison to girls with a normal weight at seven years old, overweight participants had twice the risk of developing bulimia nervosa years later.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/childhood-bmi-anorexia-bulimia/

Childhood Abdominal Pain May Be Linked to Disordered Eating in Teenagers

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on MedicalXpress.

New research shows that people who suffer from recurrent abdominal pain in childhood may be more likely to have disordered eating as teenagers.

This is the first study to provide prospective evidence of an association between recurrent abdominal pain at aged 7-9 years and fasting to control weight at aged 16 years. The study, published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, suggests that recurrent abdominal pain, the most common gastrointestinal complaint of childhood, may be an independent risk factor for later fasting to control weight.

Researchers at the University of Oxford, Duke University U.S., and the University of Bristol, used the "Children of the 90s' population cohort of 14,000 children in the UK, to explore this association.

Dr. Kate Stein, lead author of the study, Department of Psychiatry, University Oxford, said, "The factors behind eating disorders are complex, but our findings suggest that for some patients, recurrent abdominal pain in childhood may precede and contribute to later problems.

"While we cannot confirm that childhood recurrent abdominal pain increases the risk of developing an eating disorder, we suspect that some children become fearful of their pain and start to avoid foods which they associate with the pain. This could then set them on a trajectory which leads to unhelpful fasting behaviors in adolescence."

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-childhood-abdominal-pain-linked-disordered.html

Dieting and Weight Worries on Rise in Teens

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on ScienceDaily.

Significantly higher numbers of Generation Z boys and girls in the UK are dieting to lose weight, and are likely to overestimate their own weight, finds a new study.

The research, published in JAMA Pediatrics, found that girls who are trying to lose weight are also more likely to experience depressive symptoms than in previous years.

In 2015, 42% of 14-year-old girls and boys said they currently were trying to lose weight, compared to 30% in 2005.

Lead author Dr. Francesca Solmi (UCL Psychiatry) said: "Our findings show how the way we talk about weight, health, and appearance can have profound impacts on young people's mental health, and efforts to tackle rising obesity rates may have unintended consequences.

"An increase in dieting among young people is concerning because experimental studies have found that dieting is generally ineffective in the long term at reducing body weight in adolescents, but can instead have greater impacts on mental health. We know, for instance, that dieting is a strong risk factor in the development of eating disorders."

The research team reviewed data from 22,503 adolescents in the UK, in three different decades, who are part of different cohort studies: the British Cohort Study (of people born in 1970; data was collected in 1986), the Children of the 90s study (born 1991-92, data collected in 2005), and Millennium Cohort Study (born 2000-02, data collected in 2015).

The adolescents were all asked questions about whether they were, or had been, trying to lose weight, whether they had dieted or exercised to lose weight, whether they perceived themselves to be underweight, about the right weight or overweight (which was compared to their actual height and weight measurements), and they filled out questionnaires that gauged depressive symptoms. The researchers found that in 2015, 44% and 60% of all participants had dieted or exercised to lose weight, respectively, compared to 38% and 7% in 1986.

While girls have consistently been more likely to diet to lose weight, the researchers found a greater increase over the years among boys, who were also becoming more likely to be trying to gain weight.

Both girls and boys also became more likely to overestimate their weight from 1986 to 2005, and even more so by 2015, which the researchers say adds to their concerns that increased efforts to lose weight are not necessarily due to increased obesity rates.

The reported weight-related behaviors and weight misperception were associated with depressive symptoms, and among girls, this relationship was becoming even stronger over the three decades examined in this study. The findings could possibly be part of the explanation for increases in adolescent depressive symptoms that have been observed in recent decades.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201116112855.htm

Anorexia Often Stunts Girls' Growth

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Girls with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa may have stunted growth, new research suggests.

People with anorexia nervosa believe they weigh too much, even if they're underweight. They may lose a dangerous amount of weight by dieting, exercising excessively, or binge-eating and purging.

"Our findings emphasize the importance of early and intensive intervention aiming at normalization of body weight, which may result in improved growth and allow patients to reach their full height potential," said researcher Dr. Dalit Modan-Moses of Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel.

For the report, the researchers studied 255 girls around age 15 who were hospitalized for anorexia nervosa.

The investigators measured the patients' height at the time of hospitalization and again at adulthood. The women's adult height was much shorter than expected compared with the genetic potential gauged by their parents' height, the study authors said.

"We suggest that the height impairment is a marker for other complications of anorexia nervosa affecting the person's overall health in several aspects: bone health, cognitive [mental] function, and problems with pregnancy and childbirth later in life. Early diagnosis and treatment could prevent, or at least reduce, the risk of these complications," Modan-Moses said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

The report was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/mental-health-information-25/anorexia-news-28/anorexia-often-stunts-girls-growth-study-finds-760477.html