Distance learning and the suspension of sports and social activities in the pandemic triggered anorexia and bulimia. But the centers to ask for help are few. It is discussed in the Corriere Salute on newsstands on Thursday 26 May
We are publishing a preview of an article in the new Corriere Salute. You can read the full text on the free issue on newsstands Thursday 26 May or in Pdf on the Digital Edition of Corriere della Sera.
Refuse food, hide it, spit it out. Binge eating and throwing up. To check weight. Compensating for a sense of inner fragility and helplessness in relationships with others and towards the external reality that one is unable to control. With the pandemic, eating disorders have exploded, affecting younger and younger children, under the age of 14, in 90% of cases of female sex, but the centers to ask for help in the area are lacking and in trouble as never before. Distance learning and the suspension of sporting and social activities have prevented peer comparison and the search for external recognition by pushing those with low self-esteem to satisfy the need to feel capable and to allay anxiety through the domination of their body. In the last two years, more than half of the 8 psychiatric beds are occupied by adolescents with anorexia and bulimia, before Covid they were at most 2, and requests for urgent intervention from all over Tuscany have increased by 40%. Most are 13-15 year old girls he says Lucilla Bonvinichild neuropsychiatrist of the Meyer hospital in Florence.
They arrive in the emergency room in danger of life, with a heart rate below 40 beats per minute, in the state of dehydration And malnutritionwith an alteration of transaminases and electrolytes that can be harmful to organs and a body mass index of less than 15 (in normal weight between 18.5 and 24.9, ed) – he explains Federico Asianto, child neuropsychiatry of the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin -. After the lockdown we have activated eight dedicated places but we are able to admit only the most serious cases and among these the girls between 11 and 12 years are increasing. We keep them on average 40 days up to 2 months, fed with tube and drip. While at the day hospital, for assisted meals and psychotherapy, there is only one weekly admission to guarantee minimum assistance to all patients in care: space and staff are insufficient.
You can continue reading the article in Corriere Salute on newsstands for free on Thursday 26 May or in Pdf in the Digital Edition of Corriere della Sera.
May 24, 2022 (change May 24, 2022 | 17:45)
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