Eating disorders impacted by COVID-19 pandemic, Kingston experts say

Kingston Health Sciences Centre's Director of Mental Health and Addictions programs says eating disorder referrals increased by 45 per cent between 2020 and 2021.

Experts say the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a sharp rise in eating disorders, something that is often left out of mental health conversations.

Chloe Grande was first diagnosed with life threatening anorexia when she was fifteen.

Now an eating disorder recovery blogger and speaker, Grande found herself struggling during the pandemic.

“There was already that anxiety around grocery store shopping which was heightened for me, so I felt like it wasn’t even safe for me to go to the grocery store and get that proper nourishment that I needed,” she says.

But help for eating disorders has been harder to access in the COVID-19 years.

“When COVID hit, all those services abruptly got shifted or eliminated and it really caused havoc for everybody who was struggling with eating disorders,” says registered psychotherapist Rose Bruce.

According to Canada’s National Eating Disorder Information Centre, the first wave of the pandemic saw new cases of anorexia and atypical anorexia increase by 60 per cent, and monthly hospitalizations nearly tripled compared to pre-pandemic rates.

“Between 2020 and 2021 we’ve had an increase of over 45 per cent of the referrals that come to our program,” says Kingston Health Sciences Centre Director of Mental Health and Addictions Dr. Nicholas Axas.