For Jeanelle Olsen, the anxiety began when it came time to change out of what she lovingly calls her “House Pants.” That would be a pair of “very comfortable, very stretchy, wide-legged pants,” that Olsen, mom to a 5-year-old and 10-month-old near Chicago, wore nonstop from March to May. Then the weather warmed up, her kids wanted to play outside, and Olsen wanted to chat with neighbors, from a safe social distance.
“I realized, ‘oh, I think I have to get capital-D dressed, to walk out of the house and see other humans,’” Olsen said. “But I am postpartum, and mid-quarantine, and I have gained weight. My aversion to jeans is even higher than normal. And I noticed that my mind immediately went from ‘OK, so clothes aren’t fitting’ to ‘well, what should I be eating?’”
It was a triggering thought for the mother of two, who had previously struggled with disordered eating as a teenager, and now described herself as “a self-affirmed fat person,” who does not diet. But the pressure of pandemic motherhood left her grasping for her usual coping strategies.
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“Starting in mid-March, I told my husband, we need to have Oreos in the house at all times,” she said. “That is my comfort treat and having that felt really healthy. After the kids are in bed, I could have my Oreos and milk and feel like things are going to be OK.”
Olsen stands by the Oreos, but adjusting to her weight gain has been tricky. “I’m trying hard not to restrict, not to go back to old patterns,” she said.
During the pandemic, parents are navigating the confines of isolation along with the pressures to re-enter a changed world in a body that hasn’t gotten out of House Pants in five months, to say nothing of our looming school stress. And then there are our children who need another snack and another snack and what’s for lunch. “You have to nourish your kids’ bodies all day and you don’t get a break from that right now, and you also have to figure out how to nourish your own body,” said Rachel Millner, Psy. D., an eating disorder therapist in private practice in Doylestown, Pa.
For many of us, that means cookies after the kids are in bed. For parents with a history of dieting or eating disorders, it may bring a return to more troubling habits, like skipping meals, binge eating and purging. The National Eating Disorder Association saw a 78 percent increase in messages sent to their helpline in March and April compared to that time period last year. And an Australian study of 5,469 people published last month, found that 64.5 percent of those with a history of eating disorders reported that they were restricting their food intake more since the pandemic, while 35.5 percent reported more binge eating.
“At their core, disordered eating behaviors are coping strategies,” said Lisa Du Breuil, a psychotherapist who treats patients with eating disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital. “When we’re under stress, we fall back on what’s most familiar. We are all living with this ongoing existential threat. Of course that’s going to show up in your eating.”
Eating disorders thrive during periods of isolation.
When stay-at-home orders were first put in place, therapists and dietitians who treat individuals with eating disorders immediately began to worry about the disruption to their clients’ daily routines. “Pre-Covid, you had lunch breaks, the school day, bedtimes, and all these other external cues that once provided a structure for basic self-care activities,” said Ayana Habtermariam, a nutrition therapist in private practice in Arlington, Va. “Parents are now having to recreate on their own.”
The lack of social interaction was another risk. “Eating disorders thrive in isolation, because there’s already so much shame and stigma; a lot of the behaviors are done in secret,” Millner said. “When you are literally isolated all day and don’t have the same opportunities to sit down and eat with other people, the disorder will intensify.”
As the pandemic has progressed, therapists say the toll of that isolation is only deepening, as people feel increasingly anxious, depressed and lonely. But reopening cities brings new stresses. After all, isolation offers one small reprieve from body dissatisfaction. “I have a lot of clients who have felt some relief from the focus on their body because they’re not seeing other people, and they are able to spend the day in comfortable clothes,” Millner said.
Now, the comfort of that loungewear life is replaced by new fears around whether old clothes will fit, or if others will notice how our bodies have changed. “You may also be worrying about whether your kids’ bodies have changed, and will people judge you for that,” Millner said.
This transition is heightened by social media memes about the “Quarantine 15,” many of which are directed at mothers. “The primary lesson diet culture teaches us is that we should beat ourselves up for every mistake we make,” said Irina Gonzalez, a mom in Fort Myers, Fla., who gave birth to her first child on March 30.
Gonzalez said having a newborn during a pandemic has been difficult: “None of our friends were able to come over and offer that new-mom comfort of bringing meals; I don’t have that village of support that I had heard about.”
But even more, Gonzalez is struggling with how much the usual new-mom pressures to diet are compounded by her isolation. “I’m breastfeeding and I’m home all the time, so I’m in my body even more,” she said. “I wear lots of little shorts and tank tops because I find that easier for breastfeeding. But I almost hate wearing them because I grew up overweight, and I was always told I don’t look good in shorts.”
Gonzalez said she joined Weight Watchers for a week, but stopped after she realized it was causing her to overly fixate on food. The app told her that her favorite sweet potato chips “were too many points” but Gonzalez didn’t want to give them up. “I do feel like I can overuse food for comfort,” she said. “But maybe that’s OK because we’re in a stressful time.”
Granting permission for parents to use food for comfort is a big part of her job right now, Du Breuil said. “I feel like I’m a broken record, saying: This is really hard. Just getting through the day is something to feel good about. You don’t need to be ashamed of the fact that you’re finding certain foods comforting. The problem is we pathologize this benign way of taking care of ourselves.”
Indeed, feeling like you’re “not allowed” to enjoy favorite foods is what causes the sense of being “out of control” when around them, which can set people up to binge and restrict again in response. Instead of focusing on food rules, Du Breuil advises trying to sit with the underlying feelings.
Olsen said that unplugging from news has helped her re-center and resist the urge to start restricting her food intake.
She also has decided to double down on her post-bedtime self-care routine. “For me, just the scheming and dreaming about, what am I going to have for my special parent treat tonight, is helpful,” she said. “Sometimes I need comfort, like cookies or a cocktail. Sometimes I feel like this rage inside me will not be quelled that way, and I need to go for a super long walk. They are both important.”
It’s easy to prioritize feeding others over yourself.
The monotony of constantly feeding our children can compound parental eating issues. “A lot of what I’m hearing from parents is, they’ll get to the end of the day and realize, oh, I didn’t take the time to eat,” Millner said. “That’s partly ‘I was just getting through the day’ and partly the eating disorder, which doesn’t let you prioritize eating.”
She advises clients to take a few minutes at every meal to make their own plate before serving their children. If you have hangry toddlers this may mean planning ahead or possibly starting meal prep a few minutes earlier than usual.
“You’re not going to forget to feed your kids, so this makes sure you don’t get forgotten once the kids see their food is ready,” Millner said.
It can also help to outsource some of the kid meal prep. Kate Morris, a mother of three children ages 8, 5 and 2 in Northfield, Vt., noticed that the relentlessness of feeding her children had sucked all the joy out of food for herself, so she asked her husband to take over preparing the children’s lunch.
“Food was just constant; I was thinking about food, serving food, and cleaning up so much that by the time I got around to feeding myself, I could not have cared less,” Morris said. “It was a small shift in terms of me offloading one meal, but in terms of sharing my needs and ensuring they were met, I think it was a big shift.”
If you’re worried that you still won’t eat, set phone reminders or enlist a friend to Zoom with you for meal support. The Instagram account @covid19eatingsupport offers a rotating cast of eating disorder professionals who log on to provide live meal support.
And continue to prioritize comfort and pleasure in your own meals. That may look like saving a treat food to enjoy after the kids are asleep — or to eat with them. We’ve instituted a daily “Front Porch Ice Cream” ritual at my house, which gives us all something to look forward to and stops me from obsessing over whether we “can” have ice cream or not.
“Watching your kids eat and seeing how much kids can get excited by food can be really healing for parents,” Millner said.
Virginia Sole-Smith is the author of The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America, and co-host of the Comfort Food Podcast.
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