Eating Disorders

What are eating disorders?

An eating disorder is when a person has an unhealthy relationship with food, which can take over their life and make them ill. It commonly starts in young people aged 13 to 17 years old. An eating disorder diagnosis is based on eating patterns, which include tests on weight, blood factors, and BMI.

Someone with an eating disorder may find their behaviour towards eating changes. For example, they may worry a lot about their weight and shape, make sudden major changes to their diet, avoid social situations that involve food and/or make themselves vomit after meals. They may experience fainting or feel cold or dizzy, which are all signs of starvation.

There are different types of eating disorders, which are explained below:

Anorexia Nervosa

By not eating enough food or exercising too much, people with this condition keep their weight down. This could cause them to starve their body of essential nutrients, which can make them very ill.

Bulimia Nervosa

By bingeing (going through periods of eating a lot of food quickly) and then getting rid of the calories in unhealthy ways, people with this condition can make themselves sick, use laxatives, exercise too much, or take medication or use diet supplements.

Binge-eating disorder:

This is where some people regularly eat large portions of food all at once until they feel uncomfortably full, and then often feel guilty or upset.

OSFED:

This refers to ‘other specified feeding or eating disorder’ and means they don’t have all the typical symptoms of one of the types above.

What are the signs and symptoms?

There are many signs of an eating disorder, examples include:

Anorexia Nervosa

Signs and symptoms may include:

• Food fixation: constantly thinking about food, counting calories a lot.
• Low self-esteem: constantly feeling you are never good enough.
• Food avoidance: Due to a need for control, feel losing weight is not enough, reducing food intake.
• Secretive: Hiding food or lying about how much you have eaten.
• Anxious: Increase in anxiety around mealtimes.

Bulimia Nervosa:

Signs and Symptoms may include:

• A repeated cycle of binge eating or eating large amounts of food in a short period of time, then purging themselves by vomiting, fasting, exercising too much or using laxatives.
• Feeling a loss of control over how much they eat then feeling ashamed for overreacting, and very fearful.
• Low-self-esteem: basing their self-esteem on body shape and weight.

Binge-eating disorder:

Signs and Symptoms may include:

• Low self-esteem: feeling emptiness, shame or that they’re never good enough.
• Poor self-regulation: they can’t stop eating, may eat large amounts all at once.
• Comfort eating: they may not think about eating, or eat as a coping mechanism.
• Secretive: hiding or lying about how much they have eaten.
• Weight gain: as a result of binge-eating.
• Poor health: They may feel sick a lot, breathless or having a high burst of energy then suddenly feeling very tired.

OFSED:

This means ‘other specified feeding or eating disorder’ and means they don’t have all the typical symptoms of one of the types above.

What are the causes of eating disorders?

There is no single cause of an eating disorder. Most health professionals think there are several factors that contribute to eating disorders. This includes:

Characteristics of people

Research has shown there are particular character traits that can increase the risk of having an eating disorder. These include:

• Obsessive or compulsive behaviours.
• Low self-esteem.
• Highly critical of themselves.
• Perfectionism.
• Excessive competitiveness.
• Constantly seeing inadequacy of one’s work.

Personal Experiences

Experiencing stressful events or trauma may lead to use food and eating as a coping mechanism. Examples of events include:

• Physical, emotional or sexual abuse.
• Serious family problems.
• The death of someone close to them.
• Pressures at school or work, such as exams or bullying.
• Starting puberty.
• Changing school or university.
• Starting a new job.
• Exploring their sexuality.
• Leaving home or moving to a new place.

Physical and Mental Health problems

Having issues that are either mental or physical can cause an individual to spiral towards developing a disorder related to the consumption of food, as a way to feel more in control.

What are common treatments for eating disorders?

Psychological therapy

Psychological interventions offer opportunities to replace negative eating behaviours with positive ones, thus resulting in regular eating habits. Such consequences mean individuals can also benefit from positive mood alterations that result from positive eating habits.

Psychological therapy can normalize a person’s eating patterns and help them to achieve a healthy weight, exchange unhealthy habits for healthy ones, develop skills to monitor their eating and their moods, and explore healthy ways to cope with stressful situations.

Examples of different types of therapy include:

CBT - Cognitive behavioural therapy
This psychotherapy focuses on behaviours, thoughts, and feelings that relate to their eating disorder. This can help explore healthy behaviours as well as improving a person’s mood.

FBT - Family-based therapy
Having family around the process can help those with an eating disorder get back to healthy eating patterns.

GCBT - Group cognitive behavioural therapy
This therapy requires meeting those who are experiencing an eating disorder and going through therapy together with a psychologist.

Nutrition Education

Nutritional education teaches how nutrition affects the body and explores meal plans, establishes regular eating patterns and takes steps to avoid dieting or bingeing.

Medication

Antidepressants: Antidepressants can be offered in combination with psychological therapies for some forms of eating disorders.

What help and resources are available for people who need support or further advice?

For more information:

Gaining a better understanding of eating disorders can help us recognise whether someone may have an eating disorder. Gaining more information will lead to becoming more informed about treatments available to enable people to get the right support.

• NHS (See more)
• NICE (See more)
• Mind (See more)

Helplines and Chatrooms:

Helplines and Chatrooms give those with eating disorders the chance to talk to people who have experienced or are going through eating disorders. It is a safe place to talk about their disorder, gain a better understanding, and receive advice to help them go through it.

• Beat Eating Disorders (See more)
• Eating Disorders Anonymous (See more)
• National Eating Disorders (See more)

What are the recent developments in research for Eating Disorders?

Understanding the role of appetite in the development of eating disorders

Dr Clare Llewellyn and her team are looking at two factors - appetite and parental feeding strategies that may be vital to understanding the development of eating disorders. By using analysis from twins where mental health, genetic, and other potential factors have been tracked from birth through to teen years, she aims to explore how appetite and parent’s feeding practices impact eating habits in adolescence. This could predict who may be at risk of developing behaviours that are associated with eating disorders. Find out more.

Want to see more of our mental health research? See how our world-class researchers are working tirelessly to better understand, diagnose and treat mental illness.