Increased prevalence of eating disorders in Japan since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic

PURPOSE: The study aimed to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the prevalence of eating disorders in Japan. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of new patients with eating disorders who visited an outpatient eating disorders clinic of a single university hospital in Tokyo, Japan, from April 2020 to March 2021 (FY2020) and April 2019 to March 2020 (FY2019). We determined whether the onset or course in each patient in FY2020 was associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and classified COVID-19-associated medical histories into the following categories: (1) fatness phobia, (2) acceleration of dieting, (3) family relationships, (4) social factors, and (5) mood change. We performed the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test to compare the cumulative distribution of disease onset by month in FY2020 and FY2019. RESULTS: We reviewed the records of 112 and 77 patients with eating disorders in FY2020 and FY2019, respectively. The onset or course of 35 patients (31.3%) in FY2020 was associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. We classified 14 patients to fatness phobia category, 11 to acceleration of dieting, 4 to family relationships, 2 to social factors, and 4 to mood change. No COVID-19-associated cases were associated with fear of contracting the disease. The cumulative distribution of disease onset differed significantly in FY2020 and FY2019 (D = 0.248; P = 0.007). CONCLUSION: This chart review suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic may increase the prevalence of eating disorders. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: III, cohort study. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40519-021-01339-6.