Eating Disorders

An eating disorder is a mental health condition where you use the control of food to cope with feelings and other situations.

Unhealthy eating behaviours may include eating too much or too little or worrying about your weight or body shape.

Anyone can get an eating disorder, but teenagers and young adults are mostly affected.

With treatment, most people can recover from an eating disorder.

Types of eating disorders

The most common eating disorders are:

anorexia nervosa (often called anorexia) – trying to control your weight by not eating enough food, exercising too much, or doing both
bulimia – losing control over how much you eat and then taking drastic action to not put on weight
binge eating disorder (BED) – eating large portions of food until you feel uncomfortably full

Other specified feeding or eating disorder (OSFED)

A person may have an OSFED if their symptoms do not exactly fit the expected symptoms for any specific eating disorders.

OSFED is the most common eating disorder.

Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)

ARFID is when someone avoids certain foods, limits how much they eat or does both.

Beliefs about weight or body shape are not reasons why people develop ARFID.

Possible reasons for ARFID include:

negative feelings over the smell, taste or texture of certain foods
a response to a past experience with food that was upsetting, for example, choking or being sick after eating something
not feeling hungry or just a lack of interest in eating

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