Eating disorders are mental illnesses, not whims, in which food stops being an ordinary part of the day and becomes a source of anxiety, fear, and suffering. Eating disorders can gradually make a person’s life revolve around food, weight, and body shape, often without other people noticing at first.
Eating disorders are hard to recognize early because the first changes may even be praised as self-improvement, such as weight loss or intense exercise. Eating disorders need to be understood as illnesses that people do not choose, and worrying signs deserve careful attention and professional help.
The short version
- Eating disorders are mental illnesses in which food, weight, and body shape become painful and central to daily life.
- Eating disorders cannot be identified from a few details about appearance or biography, and visible signs often appear only at later stages.
- Eating disorders do not have one single cause, because biological, psychological, and social factors are closely connected.
- Support helps more than comments about appearance, because eating disorder symptoms are not solved by reassurance about weight or body shape.
- Professional help is important when eating disorder symptoms appear in you or in someone close to you.
What are eating disorders?
Eating disorders are mental illnesses in which eating stops being an ordinary and natural part of the day. Eating disorders make food painful and loaded with worry, anxiety, and fear, and a person’s life can begin to revolve around food, weight, and body shape.
Eating disorders are dangerous partly because the changes can happen gradually and remain unnoticed by other people. Eating disorders may even be seen positively at first when weight loss or active exercise is praised, even though that praise can reinforce harmful patterns.
Who is more likely to develop an eating disorder?
Eating disorders cannot be identified from a couple of external or biographical facts. Factors such as past violence, self-esteem, or a strong focus on appearance may contribute to the development of an eating disorder in a person with a predisposition, but those factors are not required and are not proof that an eating disorder will appear.
Eating disorders often do not begin suddenly, and some features may be present from childhood in ways that other people can notice. Eating disorders may be linked with unusual relationships with food, increased food selectivity, or fears, and those features are sometimes seen alongside family attitudes that divide food into categories such as “right,” “home,” “good,” or “bad.”
What causes eating disorders?
Eating disorders do not have one single clear cause. Eating disorders are better understood through a combination of causes so broad that searching for one exact cause is often ineffective or impossible.
Eating disorders involve three main groups of causes that act together because they are closely connected. Eating disorders therefore cannot be blamed only on parents or upbringing, although upbringing can be a contributing factor and can differ even between children in the same family.
Eating disorders also cannot be blamed only on modern culture or beauty standards, because not everyone exposed to those pressures develops an eating disorder. Eating disorders also cannot be blamed only on genetics, because many people may carry a predisposition while only some become ill.
Eating disorders are illnesses, not whims and not capricious reactions to someone else’s mistakes. Eating disorders may happen or may not happen, just as other illnesses may affect different people in different ways.
What types of eating disorders are there?
The main types of eating disorders listed in the latest edition of the International Classification of Diseases, ICD-11 from 2019, include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating, avoidant or selective eating, pica, and rumination-regurgitation disorder. Eating disorder categories continue to change as new scientific data appears.
- Anorexia nervosa is characterized by increased attention to body shape and weight, with control and reduction of weight, often through restrictive eating such as reducing portions, refusing some foods, or lowering calorie intake.
- Bulimia nervosa is characterized by increased attention to body weight and shape, repeated episodes of overeating, and attempts to neutralize the effects on weight and shape, such as vomiting or taking laxatives or diuretics.
- Psychogenic overeating means overeating as a reaction to factors that cause stress.
- Selective eating disorder means restricting or refusing certain foods based on characteristics such as color, texture, smell, or transparency.
- Pica means an appetite for non-food items and eating inedible things.
- Rumination-regurgitation disorder means repeated rechewing and swallowing of food that comes back from the stomach into the mouth.
What are the early signs of an eating disorder?
Eating disorders can show many signs, and the signs differ between types, but the most important point is that appearance usually helps only at later stages of illness. Eating disorders are first of all about suffering and about changes in behavior, mood, and way of life.
Eating disorders should not be judged only by how a person looks. Eating disorders become especially important to notice when food, body shape, weight, daily routines, and emotional state begin to cause visible distress and major changes in behavior.
How can you help someone with an eating disorder?
Helping a person with an eating disorder begins with understanding that an eating disorder affects both mind and body in complex ways. A person with an eating disorder will not recover just because someone says the person looks good or does not need to worry about weight or body shape.
Eating disorder thoughts, fears, and actions are symptoms of illness rather than simple beliefs or self-suggestion. A person with an eating disorder needs to learn to recognize those symptoms and gradually remove their influence.
Eating disorder symptoms often become stronger during stress, fatigue, and overwork because the person is trying to cope with those states. Support and acceptance help when other people recognize that the person is struggling and try to help the person stop, understand the trigger, and look for more effective ways of coping instead of following the illness.
The work of a psychologist or psychotherapist includes explaining how eating disorder symptoms can appear and what they may be disguised as, training awareness of physical, mental, and emotional states, and building more effective skills for stress relief and emotional regulation. Those skills help reduce the risk of worsening symptoms, breakdowns, and relapses.
Common questions
Are eating disorders a choice or a whim?
Eating disorders are illnesses, not choices or whims. Eating disorders are complex mental health conditions that can arise from a combination of factors rather than from laziness, vanity, or boredom.
Can you tell if someone has an eating disorder by looking at them?
Eating disorders usually cannot be identified by appearance in the early stages. Visible physical signs often appear later, while earlier changes are more likely to involve suffering, behavior, mood, and lifestyle.
Do comments about looking good help a person with an eating disorder?
Comments about appearance do not solve an eating disorder. Eating disorder symptoms are not removed by reassurance about weight or body shape, because the fears and compulsive behaviors are part of the illness.
What should you do if you notice eating disorder symptoms?
Professional help is important when eating disorder symptoms appear in you or in someone close to you. Support, attention, and acceptance can help, especially during periods of stress, fatigue, and emotional overload.