Muslim adolescents are 2.3 times more likely to present eating disorders and 1.8 times more likely to present body dissatisfaction than Christian adolescents. This is the result of research conducted at the University of Granada, which has also revealed that, on average, one in four adolescents has eating disorders and 15% suffer from body dissatisfaction. In a city like Ceuta where different religious groups (Christians, Muslims, Jews) have coexisted peacefully for several centuries and where the Muslim population constitutes about 30% of the total population, the aim of the present study was to determine the presence of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction in a non-clinical sample of adolescents, according to their religious affiliation, and to investigate their association with sociodemographic, anthropometric, psychological, family, academic, and health-related
behavioral characteristics, reported the UGR.
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How eating disorders treatment has changed during pandemic and
how to help your child?
Health restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic have been associated with negative psychological effects in both adults and adolescents. Adolescents may be especially vulnerable to the social consequences of the pandemic, such as isolation. Initial data suggest that there has been a worsening of symptoms in patients with eating disorders, with an increase in restrictive and/or purgative behaviors.
Current data also suggest an increase in adolescents with eating disorders worldwide. Therefore, pediatricians should be especially vigilant in detecting these behaviors early. 2020 has been a year marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, it closes with a significant growth in the use of
the network of networks, justified for the most part by the increase in online education and work and by the mobility restrictions that still affect a large part of the population.
Sculpted bodies that are exhibited on social networks. Messages that evoke the need to exercise and eat a healthy diet in order not to give up. Trips to the fridge that provoke feelings of guilt. The last year and a half of pandemic has been a great breeding ground for eating disorders (EDs), according to patients and professionals agree. A fact that has affected people already suffering from them and who have seen how their situation has worsened. At a time characterized by difficult access to the healthcare system, focused on dealing with the covid a crisis, experts point out that admissions for EDs have shot up by 20% during the pandemic.
Beyond the networks, “websites promoting anorexia and bulimia still have a lot of power”. In this scenario, the pandemic has not only affected adolescents psychologically, but has also left them with downtime, time that many have tried to fill through the use of the Internet and social networks.
For example, they now also use the fashionable social network, TikTok, a platform that since the covid-19 lockdown has multiplied its users.
It is noteworthy that both this group and adults (especially young people) have sought and received much information about COVID-19 through social networks, and not so much from conventional media. A higher problematic use of social networks has been described in Italy. The higher the exposure to social networks during the pandemic, the higher the frequency of anxiety or depression symptoms in the population. Despite the scarcity of studies on the subject, this is fundamentally related to two characteristics of social networks. Firstly, the ease with which false information, hoaxes and alarmist news are transmitted, increasing anxiety and fear among the population. Secondly, the possibility offered by some of these platforms to express our feelings, which in this time of pandemic have been extremely negative on many occasions.
Eating disorders are mental illnesses that cause those who suffer from them to have a pathological relationship with food and with the shape and weight of their own body. They involve significant physical and psychological risks, being one of the mental disorders with the highest mortality rate. Although the data varies a lot, due to the influence of culture on this disorder, it is assumed that globally between 0.9% and 2% of women will develop anorexia, while in men these figures range between 0.1% -03% . Bulimia is estimated to affect between 1.1% and 6% of women, while in men the figures are much lower, with estimates ranging from 0.1% to 0.5%.
Family involvement in eating disorder treatment is now recognized as essential and it is clear that for children, adolescents, and dare we even mention older adolescents and young adults, especially those still living at home, the family must be involved in treatment. One way for the family to know if treatment for the eating disorder is adequate and advanced is to observe the provider’s attitude about family involvement. If he is resistant to your involvement in your child’s treatment, it is a red flag. You should be welcomed. They should clearly answer your questions about the family’s role. The essence of treatment is to make the family responsible for feeding. The physician collaborates with the parents or the family to create and establish a consistent, calm, compassionate environment to help their daughter understand that she needs to take this medication, the food, to recover from this potentially life-threatening illness.
That’s the idea more or less. It’s actually much more complicated and it looks a little bit simple on paper, but it’s not so simple. It’s very difficult and exhausting at times, but there is very convincing evidence that it can be very effective in a large percentage of children or when anorexia nervosa is diagnosed early. The fact that thinness, the aesthetic ideal of our times, is not part of the aesthetic patterns of the Muslim community does not free its teenagers from eating disorders, which are far from being limited to bulimia and anorexia, but also include obesity and overweight, to mention only the best known ones. According to a UGR study, 25% of young Muslims in Ceuta suffer from some such disorder and 15% are dissatisfied
with their bodies, twice as many as among Christians.
Muslim adolescents are 2.3 times more likely to present eating disorders and 1.8 times more likely to present body dissatisfaction than Christian adolescents. This is the result of research conducted at the University of Granada, which has also revealed that, on average, one in four adolescents has eating disorders and 15% suffer from body dissatisfaction. In a city like Ceuta where different religious groups (Christians, Muslims, Jews) have coexisted peacefully for several centuries and where the Muslim population constitutes about 30% of the total population, the aim of the present study was to determine the presence of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction in a non-clinical sample of adolescents, according to their religious affiliation, and to investigate their association with sociodemographic, anthropometric, psychological, family, academic, and health-related
behavioral characteristics, reported the UGR.
Due to the pandemic these eating problems have increased, the confinement favors the stress of adolescents and that is where these disorders become more visible. Most young people sometimes do not talk about the role parents play (or, rather, do not play) in exacerbating their desperate situation. They express frustration that their parents don’t even seem to know what their role as parents is, let alone how to carry it out effectively.
Many parents, they say that as their children grow up rapidly, they focus primarily on the financial stability of their families, neglecting the
emotional needs of their children. Young people today do not talk to their parents about their problems because they think their parents are
too busy working on their personal or marital affairs to spend time on their parents’ problems, or that their parents do not understand their experiences and therefore cannot help them overcome their many challenges.
However, from the parents’ point of view, there seems to be a general atmosphere of hopelessness, a surrender to the bleak situation before them. Parents feel that they do not fit in with mainstream society and the media, which undermine parental authority as well as many (if not all) Islamic values. They see their children being absorbed into the culture of the prevailing society and cannot help but notice the rapid depletion of the authority they have to direct their children’s choices and lifestyle. To make matters worse, these parents feel unable to turn to their own parents or experiences for help because of the vast difference in experiences. Their own parents and the previous generation did not have to worry about a
society that so boldly undermined Islam.
On both sides of the parent-child relationship there is a serious lack of understanding and sympathy. They have never been taught to talk to each other, and most of the time they try to ignore the (many) elephants in the room. And when they do try to talk, they usually end up in a small explosion. Both parents and their adult children need to take a breath and learn to listen to each other, stop being defensive, and work together. It is vital that the children in the relationship be imbued with trust toward their parents. Their parents are not trying to hurt them, but to help them
