An eating disorder involves more than behavior with food. It is a mental health condition with origins in how a person thinks, feels and acts around food in relation to imbalanced views about their physical nature.
Empowered Life Therapy supports individuals of all ages and backgrounds in understanding and managing the underlying causes of eating disorders.
Together, we shape a personal path toward lasting recovery by replacing troublesome thoughts and emotions with healthy perspectives of one's values and authentic self.
Eating disorders are increasingly common in the U.S., where Americans are among the most afflicted by eating disorders in the world.
Untreated eating disorders also can be among our nation's most fatal mental illnesses, with high rates of hospitalization and emergency-room visits.
An eating disorder may reveal itself though behaviors such as:
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Individuals with an eating disorder may often not recognize it. Consequently, some might deny they have a condition and resist getting treatment. Others might be aware but still avoid treatment because they are afraid or ashamed of their eating behavior.
Still others might view their eating patterns as supporting a perceived valid goal to either gain or lose weight. In most instances, an eating disorder indicates a need to feel in control of one's circumstances or to cope with emotional pain.
According to the University of Illinois Extension, eating disorders are most common in adolescents and young adults, particularly among girls and women ages 12–35. Rates are growing among middle-aged and older adults as well.
Although females are more likely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder, men are closing the gap as awareness of the affliction is growing.
Historically, the perceived stigma attached to an eating disorder among men has made them less likely to seek support. Men might also manifest their own body dysmorphia through behaviors such as obsessive muscle leanness and gain.
Beyond being a mental health condition, an eating disorder can often impact physical health. Advancing cases can progress into more-serious conditions such as heart and kidney failure.
An eating disorder can develop from a mix of personal, social and psychological aspects. In addition to troubled relationships or a family history of eating disorders, the condition can be influenced by:
internet and social-media culture. Young people in particular are now flooded by imagery that can confront their sense of physical self, leading them to suffer by many comparisons. Today's apps with filters and photo editing further allow images that can be manipulated to perfection. Algorithms also can target vulnerable viewers with messages of thinness, fitness and "perfect" eating.
widening mental-health crisis. Anxiety, depression and perfectionism remain on the rise in Illinois and the U.S., especially among teens and adolescents. An eating disorder can linger into adulthood as well, particularly if the individual contends with a condition such as trauma or a mood disorder. Comorbid mental health conditions often facilitate irregular eating behaviors.
U.S. diet culture and fat/weight stigma. American culture greatly emphasizes physical fitness, thinness and beauty as traits of successful, desirable people. In 2023, the U.S. weight-loss industry neared $90 billion in revenue, driven in part by GLP-1 prescription drugs such as Ozempic. Within the current trend, the U.S. weight-management market is projected to reach $305 billion in sales by 2033.
lingering pandemic effects. Eating habits were impacted by COVID-19, especially among young people, who developed more eating disorders arising in part from increased isolation, disruption of routines and time on social media. According to 2021–22 CDC data, eating-disorder hospitalizations doubled among teens during the pandemic.
systemic & socioeconomic stress. An individual who struggles with social hardship such as food insecurity, economic disadvantage, bullying or racism can be at risk for developing an eating disorder.
Eating disorders can take different forms. The following are some of the more-common and well-known conditions.
Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is driven by a self-perception that one is overweight although they might be dangerously thin. It involves a preoccupation with restricted food intake, an intense fear of fat or weight gain and a distorted view of one's own body.
With this condition, an individual will often maintain a body weight that is below a minimally normal level for age, sex and physical health. They might look to lose or control weight by fasting, dieting, bingeing/purging or excessively exercising.
Bulimia Nervosa
A person with bulimia nervosa will typically engage frequent episodes of eating great amounts of food (binge-eating). This will incite a feeling of not having control over the eating, which will then prompt a compensatory behavior such as fasting, relentlessly exercising or purging (e.g. vomiting, filling the body with diuretics or laxatives).
Despite often being within a normal weight range for their bodies, sufferers may fear weight gain, strongly wish to lose weight and feel deeply frustrated with their bodies.
Binge-Eating Disorder
Like bulimia nervosa, a binge-eating disorder includes patterns of eating abnormal quantities of food, making the individual feel a shameful, distressing lack of control. Unlike with bulimia, a binge-eater will not follow the behavior with fasting, purging or intensive exercise. As a result, he or she will often become overweight or obese.
Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)
A person with ARFID will restrict or avoid food intake. It can affect young people and adults alike. Sometimes referred to as "picky eaters," those with ARFID will lack interest in eating or food. They might also avoid certain foods because of a past bad experience with them or their sensory characteristics (e.g. look, taste, smell).
ARFID is often characterized by notable weight loss, increasing nutritional deficiencies and avoidance of eating socially with others. Unlike anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating, ARFID is not compelled by body-image concerns.
The following are less-common but sometimes diagnosed eating disorders.
Rumination Disorder: the repeated regurgitation of food after eating. Previously swallowed food is brought back up into the mouth. It is then often re-chewed and either spit out or swallowed again. Often marked by malnutrition and weight loss, the behavior is sometimes described as habitual or beyond the person's control.
Pica: the frequent eating of one or more non-nutritive, non-food substances such as soap, gum, hair, paper, pebbles, soil, ice, chalk or paint. Those with Pica do not typically have an aversion to food.
The therapists at Empowered Life Therapy understand important truths:
Eating disorders can be treated.
Recovery, healing and hope are possible.
A healthy mind and weight can be restored and kept.
Because many eating disorders come from inner strife with outer pressures, recovery begins with adjusting from self-expectations and external outcomes to self-compassion and genuine values.
Together, the therapist and the individual discuss and establish a personal plan for positive growth based on the individual's concerns and circumstances.
Many of us can tend to base goals on measured results, such as excelling at a sport, acing a test or a class, getting promoted at work or being physically attractive or fit. Such objectives are qualified by success or failure based on recognition that can be ranked.
This type of focus will often only deepen an eating disorder. Healing from an eating disorder starts with shifting the focus from how we are viewed and approved to who we really are and how we want to be in the world.
With Empowered Life Therapy, those with an eating disorder learn to tame and silence the inner critical voice that manufactures defeating, negative thoughts about how we look, feel and act. The critical voice is the force behind low self-esteem and a problematic relationship with food.
We help replace the critical voice with the empowering voice that makes each individual unique in the world. Rather than demean and discourage us, the empowering voice speaks to us with love and compassion that give our body, mind and spirit back to us.
If you or someone you care about has an eating disorder, we want you to know that self-acceptance is within your reach, and you really can enjoy and find peace in who you are.
Empowered Life Therapy supports individuals with an eating disorder by listening to them, learning about them and sharing the techniques and activities that encourage greater personal health and self-compassion. To learn more about our therapy for eating disorders, call us today at (630) 842-6585 or complete our contact form.
