Admissions Related to Eating Disorders
Hospitals have expressed concern that they are seeing an increase in hospitalization of adolescents with eating disorders during the pandemic.1 To evaluate these concerns, we analyzed the rates of hospital admissions that included an eating disorder diagnosis and found that those increased by 25% overall for patients ages 12-18 as compared to predictions based on pre-pandemic trends. When looking at males versus females, females had a 30% increase in hospital admissions (1,326 admissions were predicted and 1,718 occurred). Admissions for males did not increase (199 admissions were predicted and 192 occurred).
New Eating Disorder Diagnoses in Adolescents
We then examined whether the increase in hospital admissions was partly due to an overall increase in new diagnoses of eating disorders. We found that the total number of visits for a newly diagnosed eating disorder did not change during the pandemic; however, there was a considerable difference between males and females as shown in Figure 2. In females ages 12-18, eating disorder diagnoses increased by 15% compared to the predicted rate. In males of the same age, eating disorder diagnoses appears to have decreased by 27%, although this could be due to a decrease in visits during the pandemic overall, rather than a drop in eating disorders specifically.
Compared to predictions based on pre-pandemic trends, both new diagnoses of eating disorders and hospital admissions that include an eating disorder diagnosis increased in female patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Males of the same age did not show a similar pattern. Our findings are consistent with concerns expressed by researchers and clinicians in multiple countries that the incidence of eating disorders, particularly in pediatric populations, might have increased during this period. 2, 3
