Sculptural bodies exhibiting on social networks. Messages evoking the need to exercise and eat a healthy diet so as not to abandon oneself. Trips to the fridge that provoke feelings of guilt. The last year and a half of the pandemic has been a great breeding ground for eating disorders (ED), as patients and professionals agree. A fact that has affected both the people who already suffered from them and have seen their situation worsen – some 400,000 in Spain, of which 300,000 are young adolescents, according to data from the Fita Foundation (entity dedicated to prevention, awareness and understanding of mental health problems) – as well as many at risk of suffering them who have ended up developing them. At a time characterized by difficult access to the health system, focused on addressing the COVID crisis, experts point out that TCA revenues have skyrocketed 20% during the pandemic.
Lluna Iglesias (18 years old) was admitted this June to the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona due to the restrictive anorexia that he has suffered since he was 12. His mother, Flors Moreno, regrets: “We had it programmed since before the pandemic, but it was long delayed , so Lluna arrived very badly ”. Moreno denounces: “Mental health cases are the least and worst attended.” According to the WHO, this is one of the most neglected of public health. With regard to eating disorders, 16% are not diagnosed, and more than 30% do not receive the treatment they need, according to data from Ita Mental Health (network of centers specialized in mental health treatment). For Nina Bozzo (21 years old), “the confinement was a turning back”. He has suffered from an unspecified eating disorder (incomplete pictures of anorexia or bulimia nervosa) since he was 14, and the confinement represented a setback in his recovery process. “I watched everything I ate, and increased my exercise routine. I tried to control what was inside, since outside it was a complete lack of control ”, he admits.
Iglesias and Bozzo represent a reality that affects thousands of people. Carmen Angosto, health psychologist at In Mind Psychologists, explains: “The cases that were already diagnosed have worsened, and the number of new consultations has multiplied. We can’t cope ”. Anorexia nervosa, bulimia, binge-eating disorders … EDs have run wild. Narrow finds one of the reasons: “When you limit the amount of stimuli to a floor, to a room, to screens, there is more space for obsessions.” Eduard Serrano, coordinator of the TCA Unit of the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona, agrees with Angosto: “The cases that already existed have worsened and the new ones, which are more than before, are more serious because they have not been caught in time ”.
Who suffer them
90% of those affected are still women. Between 4% and 5% of girls between the ages of 12 and 21 in Spain suffer from eating disorders, according to Ita Salud Mental. The age at which the disorders begin has also decreased. “Some children start at eight or nine years old”, Angosto details, and adds the portrait of the most typical profile of those who suffer from it: “A 15-year-old girl, from the upper-middle social class, with a good academic performance. In psychological terms, they are controlling, perfectionists, self-demanding, rigid ”. But, according to Association against Anorexia and Bulimia, there are more and more men, especially young boys, who suffer from eating disorders and his spokesman assures that the number of consultations about the variants of this type of disorder has tripled in recent months.
Toni Mejías (37 years old), singer of Los Chikos del Maíz, had a hard time understanding and accepting that he suffered from anorexia. “I did not think it could affect the male sex,” he justifies. In his book Hunger: my story in front of the mirror (Aguilar, 2021), published last May, explains his battle against the disease. Mejías remembers experiences that marked him and made him more vulnerable to suffering from it: “Being the chubby one in your group of friends, that you are not very good at sport, that it is difficult for you to talk to girls …”. Return It is the last song that Los Chikos del Maíz has released: “It’s the song that he owed me. Written on that way back. Back to recognize me, to rediscover me, to be again ”, published Mejías on his Instagram profile. “I know that I will be able to re-educate my brain just as I spoiled and damaged it back in the day,” he says. However, he confesses: “In March 2020 I was in the best mood and physical moment in years and now I feel bad again.”
Although the origin of eating disorders is “multifactorial”, Angosto affirms that “it has a lot to do with social networks, image culture, body worship and child sexualization”. And he emphasizes: “They are very serious disorders that, in the worst of cases, can lead the patient to death.” A dramatic ending that affects 5% of people with anorexia.
Social media, the lion’s den
Bozzo remembers the beginning of his TCA, which came from the hand of social networks: “I wanted the perfect body of Alexis Ren [modelo y estrella de Instagram]. I wish I had known earlier that it was the result of an eating disorder. ” Mercedes Jorquera, care director of Ita Previ Valencia, explains the damage that the networks are causing, which were the only window to the outside during the confinement: “They are very fashionable the real fooding and intermittent fasting. Myths about food have always existed, but thanks to new technologies they reach more and more people ”. According to Jorquera, this mainly affects adolescents, as they are at a time of “change and vulnerability.”
Beyond the networks, “the websites that promote anorexia and bulimia continue to have a lot of power,” complains Jorquera. They offer advice, diet or exercise – some very extreme – with which to lose weight quickly. Nina Bozzo recounts her experience with these platforms: “At the beginning, you test the waters. You know that there are people who vomit, who take laxatives, but you see it so far… Then, you end up sitting down to eat naked in front of the mirror, as they recommend, to look fat and stop eating ”.
The role of families
Flors Moreno, mother of Lluna Iglesias, admits: “When you come across something like this, you question everything.” Over time, she has learned that her daughter’s disorder does not depend on her. “You can’t go into his brain and change it,” he explains. The mother, father, sister and brother of the young woman have gone to therapy, in order to understand the disease and accompany the young woman in her recovery process. For Moreno, the family is “the great forgotten”: “Everything we have done has been for ourselves. Nobody offers you neither psychologists nor support groups ”. To which Iglesias responds: “My family is one of my two great motivations. The other is me ”.
With the passage of time, Flors Moreno feels the “microphone” of his daughter: “All that sadness, anger, impotence, fear that I have inside, I channel them, transferring to other families the message that they are not alone and that they are not alone. it comes off ”. As reflected in the Clinical Practice Guide on Eating Disorders prepared by the Ministry of Health and Consumption, around 50% or 60% of cases recover fully, between 20% and 30% do so partially, and only between 10% and 20% make the disease chronic. The treatments are long, and in the best of cases last more than two years.
Almost seven years after her eating disorder broke out, Bozzo admits that she is not cured: “Although now I am the one in charge, and not the disorder, I still cannot enjoy food with peace of mind.” However, the young woman has learned that the path she took “only brings suffering and unhappiness.” What is most difficult for her is that her family and friends see her as before: “I kill myself for showing that I am not just my disease.”
Warning signs
Eduard Serrano, from the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona, lists some of the behaviors that may be related to the possible existence of an eating disorder. On a physical level, it highlights “significant loss or sudden changes in weight, loss of menstruation and hair loss.” On a psychological level, “the obsession with body image, low self-esteem, and changes in mood towards sadness, irritability and isolation.” At the behavioral level, we must be attentive to behaviors such as “dieting or doing a lot of sports, going to the bathroom after meals, or cutting food into very small pieces.” Serrano insists on another key aspect: “At first, people with eating disorders are not aware of the problem. It is important that it does not take a long time since it begins until it comes to light ”.
Make TCA visible
For three years, feminist activist Cinta Tort (25 years old) has made her experience with eating disorders visible through art, social networks and talks. “They tell you that being thin is synonymous with being happy, and you end up believing it,” he denounces. Tort’s ATT started when he was 13 years old. At 21, she realized that she couldn’t go on like that, and decided to “make peace” with herself through painting.
During the months of confinement, the artist was working on the 467 grams project. Stories of an invisible disorder in a fat-phobic society. “467 are the grams that the 20 silver coins weigh in my grandmother’s drawer and that she hid in my bra when she went to weigh me in the hospital,” Tort confesses. He acknowledges: “During the confinement I had a hard time. I didn’t want to relapse. I lost three kilos and people told me ‘how beautiful you are’. We have to stop associating thinness with beauty and happiness ”.