BY SANDRA GUY

The COVID pandemic created ripe conditions for young people to sink into eating disorders, as they grew bored and lost their daily routines and their relationships with friends.

The suspended animation left more time for social media, where young people can easily compare themselves to fake, idealized body images.

Now is the time to pay attention — Eating Disorders Awareness and Screening Week is Feb. 6-12 — and beware warning signs.

It’s nothing to shrug off. Eating disorders reflect potentially serious problems that can lead to fatal illnesses. Take, for example, a 57-year-old woman who died of kidney failure after decades of abusing laxative and diet pills.

Common eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder.

If you see someone severely restricting food and refusing to get psychiatric help, insisting that their skeletal look is actually plumpness, he or she is probably suffering from anorexia nervosa. Other symptoms may be low blood pressure, sluggishness and an extreme focus on body image.

One aspect of this illness is bulimia nervosa, in which the person may gorge on food and then vomit it, taking care to make as little noise as possible and getting a thrill from the secretiveness of the behavior.

Signs of this disorder include a chronically inflamed and sore throat, acid reflux disorder and other gastrointestinal problems, and too low or too high levels of sodium, calcium, potassium, and other minerals that can lead to stroke or heart attack.

Though it may seem a matter of willpower, researchers have found unique brain activity patterns in women with eating disorders compared with their healthy peers.

People with eating disorders often suffer from anxiety and depression, so it’s important to help the person who’s struggling get help. Recovery is possible, but the longer the issue lasts, the stronger the sufferer’s addiction.