EATING DISORDERS
Eating Disorders and Disordered Eating: What I Want You to Know
Eating disorders are mental illnesses, and the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) classifies five main types:
In the U.S., 5 to 10 million women are diagnosed with an eating disorder. About 6% of the population struggles with anorexia or bulimia, and binge eating disorder is the most commonly diagnosed.
As a dietitian, I don’t diagnose eating disorders, but I am an essential part of the treatment team, working alongside therapists, psychiatrists, and medical doctors.
There’s a common misconception that eating disorders only affect young, underweight women. In reality, people in larger bodies are at high risk, and among those seeking inpatient treatment, 25–45% are living in larger bodies.
What Increases Risk?
There is a biological component to eating disorders—50–80% of risk is genetic, and symptoms often run in families. Beyond biology, risk factors include:
-
Dieting*
-
Perfectionism or cognitive rigidity
-
Poor body image or internalizing the thin ideal
-
Anxiety
-
History of trauma
-
Weight stigma
-
Social isolation or depression
*Dieting, even when socially promoted as healthy, is one of the biggest risk factors for disordered eating. Research suggests that about 35% of dieters progress to pathological dieting or disordered behaviors.
Disordered Eating
Disordered eating includes thoughts or behaviors around food that negatively impact your health, mental wellness, or quality of life. This might look like:
-
Preoccupation with weight or body shape
-
Food rules, “good” or “bad” foods, or food guilt
-
Restriction, bingeing, or overexercise
-
Compensatory behaviors like purging, laxatives, or diet pills
Disordered eating differs from a full eating disorder in that it doesn’t meet all DSM criteria, but it is still common—especially among moms and women over 35, where dieting often overlaps with disordered behaviors. Eating exists on a spectrum, and behaviors can fluctuate throughout life.
Disordered eating can interfere with pursuing a meaningful life. It is socially isolating, increases anxiety and depression, and has serious physical consequences. For example, anorexia nervosa is the deadliest mental illness, with a 10% mortality rate over 10 years and 20% over 20 years.
Binge Eating and Emotional Eating
Binge eating involves consuming an unusually large amount of food in a short period of time while feeling out of control. Shame and guilt often accompany binge episodes, and triggers can include dieting, food rules, or emotional distress.
Emotional eating, on the other hand, is eating in response to feelings like boredom, loneliness, fatigue, stress, or anger. You might not eat an objectively large amount, but you can still feel compelled to eat to soothe emotions. Emotional eating can lead to unwanted weight gain, which may perpetuate dieting cycles or body dissatisfaction.
Not all emotional eating is harmful. Increasing awareness of why you eat and giving yourself permission to respond with kindness to your body can be incredibly healing.
Binge eating becomes a Binge Eating Disorder diagnosis when it occurs at least once a week for three months, causes marked distress, and is not followed by compensatory behaviors. Often, binge eating and emotional eating exist on a cycle with restriction, falling along the disordered eating spectrum.
Disordered Eating and Pregnancy
Disordered eating during pregnancy is often overlooked but can contribute to perinatal anxiety and depression. Risks include:
-
Intrauterine growth restriction or small-for-gestational-age babies
-
Preterm labor or premature birth
-
Increased risk of c-section or labor complications
-
Low or high birth weight
-
Miscarriage or stillbirth
-
Maternal hypertension or preeclampsia
Addressing disordered eating before pregnancy can reduce these risks, and early intervention continues to support both mother and baby through the first 18 months of life.
Impact on Children
Disordered eating or eating disorders in parents can profoundly affect their children. Children of parents with diagnosed eating disorders are:
-
11 times more likely to develop an eating disorder themselves
-
6 times more likely to develop disordered eating patterns
Children are also at higher risk for emotional or social challenges, and low self-worth can develop when caregivers model body image distortion or food anxiety.
Disordered Eating as We Age
Disordered eating is increasing in women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. Many women experience a resurgence of body dissatisfaction and disordered behaviors once children leave home or when daily routines shift. Often, disordered behaviors serve as a way to exert control in an uncontrollable world. Hormonal changes and metabolic shifts can also affect body image as we age.
How I Can Help
As a dietitian and embodiment coach, I support healing from chronic dieting, body disconnection, disordered eating, and body image concerns by helping you normalize eating, renourish your body and brain, and understand what your body truly needs to function and thrive.
I help challenge food-related disordered thoughts and beliefs, guide you toward adaptive emotional coping, and develop long-term plans for nutrition, movement, and self-care.
Together, we can:
-
Normalize the eating pattern
-
Make peace with food
-
Support a more positive or neutral body image
-
Move away from shame, embarrassment, or distress about your body
-
Address co-occurring health concerns through gentle nutrition
-
Discuss strategies for modeling healthy food and body attitudes with children
If you’re unsure whether you may have an eating disorder, I encourage you to try a screening tool. Recovery is possible, and I’m here to guide and support you every step of the way.
.