INTRODUCTION

Resilience has been characterized as a set of social and intrapsychic processes that enable having a “healthy” life in the middle of unwholesome means. These processes are done through time, resulting in favorable combinations between family, social and cultural environments.

Resiliency, from different theoretical approaches, is considered as the capacity for adaptation and the capacity to recover the initial state when disturbance ceases, aspects which reference homeostasis. There are three basic premises: the systems exist within systems, systems are open, and functions of a system depend on its structure. They use the concept of homeostasis, with its double sense of adaptation to the environment and of tendency to return to its previous state¹.

The concept of resiliency is practically synonymous to homeostasis, but while it presupposes a state of equilibrium of a system or organization and presupposes that after conflict, change or disturbance ensues, this system adapts to the new situation or returns to the original situation.².

It can be assumed as a combination of proactive and reactive measures oriented to minimize the potential effects associated to the risks that a State faces, but not to prevent them. Adaptability and information management are key elements in resiliency.

In anxiety, multiple concepts formulated by different theory models have existed. The initial approaches came from a unidimensional model that stressed the physical processes of transitory character. Later approaches complicated matters by incorporating other variables that were measured in the development and maintenance of anxiety, such as conductive, cognitive and personality. In order to define anxiety in an adequate form, the difference between anxiety as an emotional state and anxiety as a personality trait should be taken into account³. The State-Trait Anxiety Theory: the anxiety state is an immediate “emotional state”, modifiable in time, characterized by a unique combination of feelings of tension, apprehension, and nervousness, upset thoughts and concerns, together with physiological changes. The anxiety trait refers to the individual differences of relatively stable anxiety, these being a disposition, tendency, or trait. Contrary to the state of anxiety, the anxiety trait does not manifest directly in the conduct and it should be inferred by the frequency with which an individual experiments increases in their state of anxiety³.

In this manner, the subjects with a high degree of anxiety trait perceive a greater range of situations such as threats and are more predisposed to suffer from the state of anxiety more frequently or with greater intensity. The high levels of the state of anxiety are perceived as intensely upset, therefore, if a person cannot avoid the stress that causes it, they will put in motion the coping skills necessary to confront the threatening situation. If the person feels inundated by the state of anxiety, they can initiate a defensive process to reduce the irritating emotional state⁴.

Their multidimensional character is undeniable, highlighting the situation that provokes it, the takeover manner and the response patterns, a multidimensional model is presented in which the states of anxiety are determined by the interaction of the personal and situational variables⁵. Within the latter, at least four different situational areas are acknowledged: interpersonal situations, situations that imply physical danger, ambiguous or innovative situations and situations of social evaluation. With respect to modes of acquisition, it is proposed that anxiety can be learned through classic conditioning, vicarious learning or through cognitive information⁶.

Anxiety was conceptualized as a triple system of physiological, cognitive, and motor response. It is a complex system of cognitive, physiological, behavioral, and affective (named threat mode) response, which is activated when there is anticipation of certain events or circumstances that are evaluated as aversive.

METHODS

Descriptive correlational: a research trying to find dependence and independence of the variables is of mixed approach: quantitative and qualitative, in a 20- to 45-year-old population. Instruments: Anxiety state (A/S) and Anxiety trait (A/T) were applied.

RESULTS

Findings of the two dimensions: Anxiety State (A/S) and Anxiety Trait (A/T) with resiliency ability:

Psychosocial Field. First level of findings of Emotional Instability

The Anxiety Status- Trait in adults was greater than 65%. Following the decision rule in the relational hypothesis test, according to chi square, the bilateral significance is p=0.01, therefore, the alternate hypothesis is accepted, indicating that anxiety was related to resilience.

Additionally, during the pandemic, the studied population’s hemoglobin in men was between 12 and 14 g/dl=normal and in women less than 7 was severe anemia.

Food consumption before the pandemic, was classified in three parts: natural 60%, processed 40% and ultra-processed 0%., which can be observed in Figure N° 1.

Graphic 1:  Type of Food Consumption before and during confinement 

During confinement, the consumption of processed foods was 53.33% and ultra-processed 20%, which shows a considerable increase, reversing values, lowering natural food consumption.

Likewise, the Wilcoxon test was applied, and it was found that the level of food consumption before and during the pandemic, shows a significant difference of p <5%.

On the other hand, during this research we found that the anxiety level during Covid-2019 confinement increased considerably, supported by the type of food consumed, especially high in fat and sugar.

Graphic 2: Level of anxiety in Amazonian residents before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The level of anxiety before and during the pandemic, using Wilcoxon test, shows a significant difference of p <5%.

DISCUSSION

Resiliency in the Amazonia inhabitants in Madre de Dios is a process, that in terms of quality of life shows us the ability a person must overcome traumatic circumstances such as death by covid-19 virus, surviving the pandemic and a national and international sanitary emergency situation.

Anxiety may be a supposedly normal state if there is a threat stimulus, or a symptom of generalized anxiety disorder and even with panic attacks, and at the same time it may be a neurotic clinical presentation and is especially important to be able to differentiate the levels of Anxiety State (AS), which is temporary as opposed to Anxiety Trait of personality which is permanent. Both play an important role in different aspects of one’s life. One of them is if anxiety accompanies other collateral factors which are complications from food consumption, such as giving up eating (anorexia) or abundant eating (bulimia) and several studies are performed by many authors to define, study, and delineate its status among psychic processes, paying attention as both undergo hematologic analysis to examine white blood cells (immune system)¹⁰.

The psychosomatic theory, whose pioneer in the XIX century, Coleman, emphasized with respect to food conduct disorders, may have genetic and learned causes, which is why he recommended multidisciplinary treatments and avoiding the masking hypothesis However, we observe anorexic and bulimic patients have two different causal perspectives, one due to appetite deficit (anorexia) and one with increased appetite (bulimia), in both we can observe increased levels of anxiety¹⁰.

In this research we show a similar reality as observed by Coleman, but in this case the fundamental premise during the pandemic is good mental and physical health as essential for sustainable development. The 2030 agenda reflects the complexity and interconnection of both. It considers the economic and social inequalities, rapid urbanization, climate and environmental threats, continued fight against HIV and other infectious diseases, and new health problems such as non-transmissible diseases. The universal health coverage should be comprehensive to end poverty and reduce inequalities, guaranteeing the specific number 2 objective and put an end to hunger, have a way out to reach food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Regarding objective number 3: optimal physical and mental health is guaranteeing a healthy life and promoting wellbeing for everyone of all ages¹¹.

In a research from Argentina, an existing relationship between stress, anxiety and eating patterns is established in the adult population between 25 and 50 years of age who work in the central zone of the city of Tandil in the province of Buenos Aires, whose results give an account of the tight relationship between these variables⁹.

Likewise, the Spielberger (1972) predictions are confirmed, since competitive anxiety-state increases more intensely in those steeply anxious, being able to strongly reproduce the relationship in the somatic dimension of anxiety. However, the overall effects must be considered as low. The greater intraindividual stability of competitive anxiety-trait can be proven with the competitive anxiety-state constructor.

The cognitive as well as the somatic dimension of the anxiety-trait competitive, remain invariable, while the anxiety-state competitive increases in the course of the week prior to the competition, Just as Martens et al. (1990) assumed, this modification of the somatic dimension of the anxiety-state competitive results greater than the cognitive dimension. Therefore, Spielberger’s assumption (1972) can be confirmed regarding that anxiety-state increase depends on anxiety-trait.

In México, it was found that the adult population links diet mainly with emotions (predominantly those referring to negative affective states), environment and culture, reflected in cohabitation, special events, and family¹². Specifically, it has been reported that emotions are one of the factors that have the ability to modify food patterns (in animals as well as humans), from the very nature of the affective state concerned, as well as the personal characteristics¹². The concept of emotional eating (EE) emerged from mainly psychodynamic theories, that sought to give a psychological explanation about obesity, addressing the role that emotions play incrementing food consumption. Among the findings regarding characteristic food selections in EE, it was mainly identified as caloric type, sweets, and fats that, as reason for its hedonic effect in a rewards system, reinforces its consumption. Accordingly, the people that have a greater inclination of using this type of intake have been called “emotional eaters”, including having a greater susceptibility to stress and greater neurophysiological sensitivity to reinforcement.

The anti-consumption of the Amazon inhabitant deserves a type of adaptive change during the pandemic, which affects its weight, height, and quality of life. However, the adult population adapts to the pandemic uncertainty with perseverance to find solutions that benefit everyone and present a real outlook to make decisions in the future. It is unknown if post-pandemic there will be an economic recovery depending on the consumption of products and we will probably see this in a very distant future¹³.

CONCLUSIONS

The resilience ability in the Amazonian population is of a high level. The State-trait Anxiety was greater than 65% in adults. Anxiety was related to resiliency ability. There is a significant difference in the type of foods consumed, in anxiety levels, before and during COVID-19 pandemic, in the inhabitants of the southeastern Amazon. The consumption of processed and ultra-processed foods, before the pandemic was 40% and during the pandemic it increased to 73%, also increasing the consumption of food high in fat and sugar.