What are the signs and symptoms disordered eating?

Disordered eating is a broad category that encompasses a range of irregular eating behaviours and attitudes toward food, body image, and weight. While not always meeting the clinical criteria for a diagnosed eating disorder, disordered eating is incredibly common and can significantly impact your physical health, mental wellbeing, and quality of life.

Understanding whether your relationship with food has become problematic is the first step. Have a look at the following behaviours and attitudes, and consider how many apply to you:

Common Signs of Disordered Eating

• Frequent dieting or following restrictive eating patterns

• Rigid rules about "good" and "bad" foods

• Eating in secret or feeling ashamed about eating

• Compensating for eating through excessive exercise, fasting, or purging

• Obsessive calorie counting or macro tracking

• Feeling anxious or guilty after eating certain foods

• Binge eating episodes (eating large amounts of food rapidly, often feeling out of control)

• Skipping meals regularly or ignoring hunger cues

• Weighing yourself multiple times per day

• Body checking behaviors (constantly examining your body in mirrors, measuring body parts, pinching skin)

• Social withdrawal, particularly avoiding events that involve food

• Preoccupation with food, weight, or body shape that interferes with daily life

• Using food as your primary coping mechanism for difficult emotions

• Extreme mood swings related to what you've eaten or what the scale shows

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If several of these resonate with you, you're not alone. Disordered eating exists on a spectrum, and many people experience some of these behaviours without realising the pattern has become problematic.

The Vicious Cycles That Keep You Stuck

Multiple factors influence both the development and continuation of disordered eating behaviours.

At the heart of it all is often a complex relationship between body dissatisfaction, external influences, a desire for control and the internalisation of messages and beliefs about how we 'should' look.

These elements exist in a self-perpetuating cycle: the more dissatisfied you feel with your body, the more likely you are to experience symptoms of a poor relationship with food and emotional distress. These difficult emotions then increase the likelihood of engaging in disordered eating behaviours, which ultimately reinforce body dissatisfaction and continue the cycle.

This is precisely why addressing mental and emotional health is absolutely crucial when working on your relationship with dieting. You cannot separate the two.

Understanding the Common Cycles

Disordered eating tends to follow predictable patterns. You might recognise yourself in one or more of these cycles:

The Restriction-Binge Cycle: You decide you need to lose weight and begin restricting your food intake. Initially, you might feel in control, but eventually the restriction goes too far. Your body's powerful hunger signals intensify, and you experience what feels like uncontrollable cravings. This leads to a binge episode, followed by feelings of failure and shame, which then prompts you to restrict again "to make up for it."

The Disappointment-Comfort Cycle: You step on the scale and haven't lost weight as expected. Feelings of disappointment wash over you. Food provides temporary comfort, leading to eating more than you intended. You feel awful afterward and promise yourself you'll "start fresh tomorrow" or "be stricter next time." The cycle repeats.

The Success-Sabotage Cycle: You lose weight and feel successful. But the next time you weigh yourself, the number hasn't budged or has increased slightly (a completely normal weight fluctuation, FYI). Feelings of frustration and disappointment trigger either another binge episode or extreme restriction that eventually leads to a binge.

The Good Food/Bad Food Cycle: You label certain foods as "bad" and tell yourself you can't have them. When you eventually do eat these foods, you experience what feels like a complete lack of self-control. This confirms your belief that the food is "bad" and you lack willpower, leading to continued restriction and eventual binge episodes.

What's Really Going On?

In all of these patterns, several critical issues emerge:

Heavy focus on weight as a measure of success and self-worth: Your value as a person becomes tied to a number on the scale. Normal weight fluctuations (which can be several pounds in a single day due to water retention, digestion, hormones, and sodium intake) become emotionally devastating rather than being recognised as completely natural.

Restriction taken too far: Attempts to control eating through willpower alone eventually backfire. When you're genuinely hungry and your body is deprived, biological drives will eventually override cognitive control. What feels like a "lack of willpower" is actually your body's survival mechanism kicking in.

Absence of emotional coping mechanisms: Food becomes the primary or only tool for managing difficult emotions like stress, anxiety, sadness, or boredom. Without alternative ways to process these feelings, the cycle continues.

The Physical and Emotional Toll

Compensatory behaviours such as exercising excessively after eating or using laxatives, along with constant preoccupation with body image, take a significant toll on both self-esteem and overall wellbeing. These patterns often lead to:

• Reduced social contact due to fear of judgment from others

• Withdrawal from activities involving food

• Increased isolation and loneliness

• Worsening depression and anxiety

• Physical consequences including fatigue, digestive issues, hormonal imbalances, and nutrient deficiencies

  
  

When weight and body shape provide a sense of control or become central to your identity, regular and completely normal weight fluctuations can feel catastrophic. This often leads to social withdrawal and isolation, which is particularly problematic because social support is one of the most effective buffers against anxiety and low mood associated with disordered eating.

Understanding Binge Episodes

Binge eating episodes can arise from multiple triggers. The temporary relief provided by eating (sometimes called "comfort eating") is typically followed by feelings of shame, depression, frustration, and helplessness, which then fuel the continuation of the cycle.

It's important to understand that for those who are predisposed to disordered eating patterns (research suggests that mental health struggles and a history of dieting are significant risk factors), conventional dieting can actually trigger or worsen disordered eating. Attempting to abstain from eating by relying solely on cognitive control and willpower significantly increases the risk of binge eating episodes, particularly when difficult emotions arise.

Breaking Free

Recognizing these patterns in yourself is the first step toward change. Healing from disordered eating typically involves:

• Challenging all-or-nothing thinking about food

• Developing emotional coping strategies beyond eating

• Separating self-worth from weight and appearance

• Learning to recognise and honour hunger and fullness cues

• Working with qualified professionals

• Building a support system

• Practicing self-compassion and emotional regulation

  
  

Remember that disordered eating exists on a spectrum, and wherever you find yourself on that spectrum, support is available and recovery is absolutely possible. Your relationship with food can become peaceful, nourishing, and free from the exhausting cycles that may have dominated your life.

If you're struggling with disordered eating, please reach out. You deserve to have a healthy, balanced relationship with food and your body.