The pandemic exacerbated many mental health problems, and eating disorders are no exception: Emergency room visits for girls suffering from anorexia and bulimia were twice as high in January of this year as they were three years earlier.
What hasn’t kept up is how government-funded insurance programs have responded to the crisis. Families are struggling to obtain adequate care on the plans designed to help the very people who can’t afford the costly treatments that higher-income Americans turn to.
The Covens family, who live just outside Raleigh, North Carolina, found themselves trapped in a loop as a result of the barriers to care. Their daughter Penny, who dropped from 90 pounds to 63 pounds over just three months when she was 12 years old, first got admitted to the hospital in June of 2021 when her parents realized just how thin she had become. Penny was so gaunt that hospital staff notified the state’s child protective services that she was malnourished, prompting an investigation. Even so, the hospital sent Penny home the next day, saying there was little they could do for her.
