饮食失调在焦虑的时代很容易滋生，并构成致命的威胁

饮食失调在焦虑的时代很容易滋生，并构成致命的威胁

A recent survey found 62% of people in the U.S. with anorexia experienced a worsening of symptoms after the pandemic hit. And nearly a third of Americans with binge-eating disorder, which is far more common, reported an increase in episodes.

最近的一项调查发现，美国62%的厌食症患者在疫情爆发后症状恶化。近三分之一的美国暴食症患者(暴食症要常见得多)的发作次数有所增加。

For most of her 34 years, Stephanie Parker didn't recognize she had an eating disorder.

在她34年的大部分时间里，斯蒂芬妮·帕克都没有意识到自己有饮食失调。

At age 6, she recalls, she stopped eating and drinking at school — behavior that won her mother's praise. "It could have started sooner; I just don't have the memory," says Parker. In middle school, she ate abnormally large quantities, then starved herself again in the years after.

她回忆说，6岁时，她就不再在学校吃东西、喝东西了——这种行为赢得了她母亲的赞扬。“这种行为可能更早开始，我不记得了，”帕克说。在中学时，她吃得异常的多，在之后的几年里再次挨饿。

This spring, it all came to a head: She was confined and alone in her New York City studio apartment, as COVID-19 ripped through the city. The pandemic fomented fear and, for Parker, called up past trauma and aggravated the obsessive compulsive disorder that had started to become apparent years earlier. She realized then her relationship with food was life-threatening.

今年春天，这一切都达到了高潮:当COVID-19在纽约市肆虐时，她独自一人被限制在她的单间公寓里。对帕克来说，流行病引发了恐惧，唤起了过去的创伤，加剧了几年前就开始显现的强迫症(简称OCD)。她意识到她和食物的关系危及生命。

"The OCD and anxiety ... just made my eating disorder more intense, and for me that meant I would become obsessed with cleaning everything and then checking in with myself to see if I deserve to eat," says Parker. It wasn't just that cleaning frenzies on an empty stomach left her with no energy to pick up a fork. "I would become scared of food — I got scared that food would make me sick because it wasn't clean enough."

“强迫症和焦虑……这只会让我的饮食失调更加严重，对我来说，这意味着我会沉迷于清洗一切事物，然后检查自己是否值得吃东西，”帕克说。这不仅仅是因为她饿着肚子狂乱地打扫，以至于没有力气拿起叉子。“我开始害怕食物——我害怕食物会让我生病，因为它们不够干净。”

Eating disorders are thriving during the pandemic. Hotline calls to the National Eating Disorders Association are up 70-80% in recent months. For many, eating is a form of control — a coping mechanism tied to stress. Food scarcity and stockpiling behavior can trigger anxieties about eating, or overeating among some.

在流行病期间，饮食失调现象日益严重。最近几个月，全国饮食失调协会(简称NEDA)的热线电话增加了70-80%。对许多人来说，吃东西是一种控制方式，是一种应对压力的机制。食物短缺和囤积行为会引发一些人对饮食或暴饮暴食的焦虑。

"We know that eating disorders have a strong link to trauma," says Claire Mysko is CEO of NEDA. "Many people with eating disorders have past experiences with trauma, and this [pandemic era] is a collective trauma."

“我们知道饮食失调和创伤有很大的联系，”克莱尔·米什科是NEDA的首席执行官。“许多饮食失调的人都有过创伤的经历，而这个(流行病的时代)是一个集体创伤。”

It's also a lethal threat. Eating disorders have the second-highest mortality rate of any psychiatric diagnosis — outranked only by opioid use disorder.

这也是一个致命的威胁。饮食障碍的死亡率是所有精神病诊断中第二高的，仅次于阿片类药物使用障碍。

A survey in International Journal of Eating Disorders in July found 62% of people in the U.S. with anorexia experienced a worsening of symptoms as the pandemic hit. And nearly a third of Americans with binge-eating disorder, which is far more common, reported an increase in episodes.

《国际饮食失调杂志》7月份的一项调查发现，随着流行病的爆发，62%的美国厌食症患者的症状有所恶化。近三分之一的美国暴食症患者(暴食症要常见得多)的发作次数有所增加。

A boom in teletherapy, Peat says, has helped some people continue to receive care, but it has left many people behind — 45% of respondents — without care.

皮特说，远程治疗的蓬勃发展帮助一些人继续接受治疗，但也让很多人(45%的调查对象)没有得到治疗。

Besides, Parker was athletic, and she appeared healthy. So for decades, she ignored her own compulsive anxieties and behavior as just some version of normal. "For me, in my head, I felt like ... I don't fit into any of those categories — so therefore, this is not affecting me."

而且，帕克很健壮，看上去很健康。因此，几十年来，她忽视了自己强迫性的焦虑和行为，把它们视为一种正常的表现。“对我来说，在我的脑海里，我觉得……我不属于这些类型，所以这对我没有影响。”

"For me, part of the reason I kept myself in hiding about this was that I didn't feel like I was connected to the people I was seeing," she says, "because they didn't look like me."

她说：“对我来说，我隐瞒这件事的部分原因是，我觉得我和我看到的人没有联系，因为他们看起来不像我。”

Nonetheless, she adds, the therapy she's getting has really helped: "I can actually feel emotions and talk about them. I feel great — I just went out to dinner last night."

尽管如此，她补充道，她正在接受的治疗确实很有帮助:“我真的能感觉到情绪并谈论它们。我感觉很好，我昨晚刚出去吃饭。”

Even for those further along in their recovery, pandemic life has made it difficult to retain balance.

即使对那些正在恢复的人来说，流行病的生活也使他们很难保持平衡。