Eating Habits: Recognizing Disturbances, Differences with Eating Disorders, and Root Causes
Disordered eating and eating disorders are complex issues that often blur the lines between healthy and unhealthy eating habits. While disordered eating does not meet the clinical criteria for an eating disorder, it can still have a significant impact on an individual's physical and mental health.
Disordered Eating
Disordered eating commonly involves behaviors and attitudes around food that are irregular or unhealthy. Signs and symptoms include:
- Restricting food intake or skipping meals
- Preoccupation with calories, food “healthiness,” or rigid food rituals
- Skipping or avoiding social events involving food
- Excessive or compulsive exercise
- Hiding food or eating alone
- Mood swings, irritability around meals, withdrawal from social activities
- Checking body weight or appearance obsessively
These behaviors, while not meeting the clinical criteria for an eating disorder, can still cause distress and may progress over time if left untreated.
Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are a range of behavioral conditions characterized by severe and persistent disruption to eating patterns that causes significant distress. They are clinically diagnosed mental health conditions with specific physical, behavioral, and psychological criteria.
Examples of eating disorders include:
- Anorexia Nervosa: Severe food restriction or self-starvation.
- Bulimia Nervosa: Binge eating followed by purging behaviors such as vomiting, laxative use, or excessive exercise.
- Binge Eating Disorder: Recurrent episodes of binge eating without the compensatory behaviors seen in bulimia nervosa.
- Atypical Eating Disorders: Eating disorders that don't fit the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge eating disorder.
- Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder: Avoidance of certain foods due to fear of choking, vomiting, or weight gain.
Eating disorders cause significant distress, medical complications, and often manifest as severe food restriction, rapid weight changes, physical signs like dry skin, hair thinning, irregular heart rhythms, and fatigue, and psychological signs like distorted body image, intense fear of gaining weight, mood disorders, and social withdrawal.
Key Differences
| Aspect | Disordered Eating | Eating Disorder | |-----------------------|-----------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------| | Definition | Irregular or unhealthy eating behaviors | Clinically diagnosed mental health conditions | | Severity | Often less severe, fewer medical complications| Severe, often life-threatening with medical risk| | Diagnosis | No formal diagnosis required | Diagnosed by mental health professionals | | Physical symptoms | Usually absent or mild | Prominent physical changes and health risks | | Psychological impact | May cause distress but variable | Significant distress, distorted self-perception | | Examples | Occasional food restriction or binge episodes | Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder |
Risk Factors and Prevalence
Disordered eating is more prevalent in females than males, but it also occurs in males. Girls are more likely than boys to engage in disordered eating behaviors. Social factors such as peer groups and frequent use of social media may increase the risk of disordered eating, especially among adolescent females.
People with type 1 diabetes may be more susceptible to the development of disordered eating behaviors than people without diabetes. Infrequent family meals and family attention and commentary on weight are risk factors for the development of disordered eating. Anecdotal evidence suggests disordered eating may develop as a result of social and cultural factors, emotional factors, psychological factors, and physical factors.
Treatment and Recovery
Treatment for disordered eating and eating disorders may include individual, group, or family psychotherapy, medical care and monitoring, emotional and nutritional counseling, and medications. Recovery from disordered eating may involve addressing physical effects, reducing or stopping behaviors such as restricting food intake, overexercising, purging, and binge eating, and addressing psychological aspects such as body image distress, fixation on perfectionism, rigid rules around food, eating, and weight, and management of mood and anxiety disorders to avoid relapse.
The National Alliance for Eating Disorders has resources available for people who are experiencing disordered eating behaviors to aid their recovery.
[1] National Eating Disorders Association. (n.d.). Definition and warning signs. Retrieved from https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/learn/general-information/definition-warning-signs
[2] Mayo Clinic. (2021). Eating disorders. Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/eating-disorders/symptoms-causes/syc-20372463
[3] American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
[4] National Institute of Mental Health. (2021). Eating disorders. Retrieved from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/eating-disorders/index.shtml
[5] National Center for Health Statistics. (2019). Data brief no. 362: Prevalence of eating disorders in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db362.htm
