A bit worried about my Mum's lack of appetite

[foreverisover]

My Mum who is her late 50's had covid back in January, what I've noticed over the last few months is her lack of appetite, I mean she's never had a big appetite but she's certainly eating less than she was doing. When she will ill with covid she lost around a stone in weight and since then has lost a few more pounds. For context I live with my parents. A typical day for my Mum will be toast for breakfast, she'll have nothing for lunch then at dinner, she'll often say that she's not particularly hungry but eating because she needs to. I have a bigger appetite than my Mum so when I go and make myself a sandwich and have a bag of crisps and sometimes a biscuit/cookie at lunch she has said to me before I can't understand how you can eat that much at lunch a bag of crisps would be plenty for me. She's made comments before how me and my Dad live to eat as we enjoy our food whereas she eats to live. I'm mainly writing this as I'm getting a bit concerned about how little appetite my Mum has had over the last few months.

You're not wrong to be worried. It could be a post-viral thing, although it's gone on long enough that I'd want her to get checked out. It's also surprisingly common for older women to develop anorexia (obviously in your fifties isn't old at all, but older than the teenagers you usually picture with eating disorders) - and eating disorders can be triggered by rapid weight loss.

I assume she's still losing a fair bit of weight if that's all she's eating - have you tried talking to your dad about it?

I'd add, the commenting on others' food is a big red flag for anorexia or some form of disordered eating for me. My mum's been bulimic on and off my entire life, and this is something she does a lot - "Oh can't you put a lot away!", "I could never eat that much". It's like a weird form of self soothing to remind her of her own self control, or maybe her (now completely inbuilt) disgust of food and of being seen as gluttonous.

Oh! Also - sorry for the third comment - did she lose taste/smell with Covid, and have they come back? If not, that might be the issue. My dad has no sense of smell or taste since an accident and he has no appetite any more, he's lost the drive for food, and he says he eats because he has to too.

Agree, it sounds like the weight loss may have induced an eating disorder. That is a trigger if she had a propensity.
Commenting on what you and her husband eat suggests she is more interested in food than she claims.

I hadn't thought of anorexia, I was thinking it was maybe loss of appetite because of covid. My Mum always eats dinner and has dessert as well. I struggle to understand how she can go from breakfast to dinner without eating anything which will about 9 hours for my Mum, I would be absolutely starving if I ate like that.

@therocinante Yes she did lose her sense of taste and smell, I'm not sure if it has come back or not

Does she have any signs of post viral fatigue or any symptoms of long Covid? I had flu very severely in December 2019 and had post viral fatigue for 4 months. I could barely eat anything, it just completely killed my appetite and I lost a lot of weight. It gradually made too much of a reappearance a few months later though.

I lost a stone with covid and have lost about another half stone since. Mid 50s.

No smell and a reduced taste is the reason- nothing more sinister than that. No pleasure in eating really.

With covid I think I'm worrying about is that she had in January, when she recovered her appetite came back somewhat as she was eatign a loss less when ill but it still isn't as much as she would eat before she had covid. For example before she was ill with covid she would normally eat lunch but now rarely has anything for lunch as she says toast for breakfast fills her up but if she ate cereal like I normally do she would eat at lunch as she finds toast at breakfast fills her up for longer.