Session 3. Eating disorders and eating behaviors in the Context of COVID-19: Sociological perspectives

The changes in everyday activities and lifestyle caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and related lockdown and isolation had a strong impact on mental health of the general population (Clark Bryan et al., 2020; Fernández-Arenda et al., 2020; Miniati et al., 2021). The pandemic has exacerbated the burden of eating disorders, and highlighted the urgent need to raise awareness of these conditions, since the pandemic seems to have had particularly detrimental effect on people with, or at risk of, eating disorders (Zipfel, Schmidt & Giel, 2022), conditions that are disabling, potentially fatal, and that substantially impair physical health and disrupt psychosocial functioning. Eating disorders, from restrictive eating to binge eating and their subtypes, affect a high number of people, in fact, estimates from 2019 show a global prevalence four times higher than had been thought. Further, multiple reports show an increase in the incidents of eating problems, and deterioration of eating disorders in patient populations, with severed symptoms and additional comorbidities, since the start of the pandemic (Zipfel, Schmidt & Giel, 2022).

The increased incidence of eating disorders during covid-lockdown emphasizes the social component of eating disorders, and underlines eating disorder’s connection to societal conditions and context. The social changes, occurring on a global level, are regarded as additional burdens to both individuals with pre-existing eating disorders and for people belonging to atypical categories of eating disorder diagnosis (Miniati et al., 2021). Research on these phenomena of eating disorders is dominated by biomedical and psychological perspectives. There is a need for intensive sociological investigations of the phenomena in general and the pandemic highlights the need for sociological studies on eating disorders even more. This session invites and welcomes empirical and theoretical papers that investigate the connection between eating disorders and societal characteristics of Covid in particular, but also other empirical and theoretical studies of the phenomena.

Hilde Berit Moen, PhD in Sociology, is an Associate Professor at Nord University, Norway, where she teaches sociology and social work theories and methods. Her main research interest is on medical sociology, especially on illness experiences and treatment experiences in eating disorders.

Trude Gjernes, Dr. Polit in Sociology, is a Professor at Nord University, Faculty of Social Sciences. Gjernes has a special expertise and interest in the sociology of health and medicine, specialising in public health and lifestyle, aging and dementia, and social interaction.