Social distancing can make living with eating disorders harder
The study found that people living with eating disorders, like many others, also report an increase in anxiety related to the pandemic. (Pixabay/)New research suggests that pandemic stress is exacerbating the symptoms of people who live with eating disorders. The study, published late last month in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, involved more than 1000 participants in the US and the Netherlands. It also found that social distancing helped some people with eating disorders start or increase helpful habits.“We found in the beginning of the pandemic that we were getting lots more phone calls from people who were seeking treatment,” says study author Cynthia Bulik, who heads up the University of North Carolina’s Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders. She and her colleagues set out to collect data on how people with eating disorders were handling their condition amidst the pandemic.In April, they recruited 511 study participants from the...