Eating disorder epidemic
Hospital admissions for eating disorders have shot up in the past five years. Why? And what is being done about it? We meet the people battling a crisis
T o those who aren’t in the know, it looks like any other office: tiles of commercial grey carpet, blue swivel chairs and stern black screens fill the space. Faux potted plants punctuate the otherwise stark white walls and an array of balloons in a rainbow of colours are strewn across the floor, remnants from a recent birthday celebration. At the pinecoloured desks, rows of employees sit with their headsets on, each embroiled in their conversation. So far, so unremarkable.
But listen closely to the words being spoken and you’ll soon learn, as I do on this grey afternoon, that this is no ordinary workplace. One of the employees says, ‘I understand how frustrating it must be to keep reaching out and not feel like you’re getting the help you need.’ Another one says, ‘Please know that you’re deserving of support,’ and then, simply, ‘I hear you.’ They’re speaking to people they’ve never met – and never will – but their words are lifechanging, and sometimes, they can even be life-saving.
I’m sitting in on an afternoon shift at the Warrington offices of Beat – the UK’s leading charity for those affected by eating disorders – shadowing a team of helpline advisers. This team – a mix of volunteers and employees – are on the front line of a developing crisis: hospital admissions for eating disorders have increased by 84% in the past five years. In the year before the pandemic, this team provided nearly 40,000 ‘support sessions’ (from helpline calls to online support groups and web chats) but in the first year of Covid that number shot up to 100,000, and in the year to March 2022, rose again to 127,000. The helpline is open to anyone who is affected by eating disorders, from those suffering, to partners, family, teachers and friends. Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions and include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (a condition characterised by restricting intake of food, or avoiding certain types of food, or both).
In my few hours at the helpline, the callers range from a mother concerned about her daughter, a woman who works in a children’s care home and needs to quickly understand why one child has developed a disordered eating pattern, and another caller who reports a low BMI. Through these snapshots, I’m hoping to understand why eating disorders are increasing so sharply – and if anything can be done to halt it.
‘The rise has been massive – it’s been crazy,’ says Mia Jackson, 23, who started at Beat in January 2022 and is now a senior helpline adviser. She tells me s
