What Disordered Eating Is And How You Can Spot It

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Disordered eating is a term you’ve no doubt heard used before.

While it gets used in several different clinical, media, and research settings, many people struggle to understand what disordered eating means and what it encompasses.

Part of this difficulty has to do with the fact that there’s actually no universally agreed-upon definition of disordered eating.

People tend to define disordered eating in different ways, and we’ve yet to come up with a definition that sticks.

Based on the research and available literature, we would define disordered eating as a constellation of maladaptive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors towards food and eating that negatively impact an individual’s psychological, social and physical functioning.

Now, this is a very broad definition.

We’re aware of that.

But the reason for this is that there are so many different types of disordered eating patterns that exist.

Given this, it’s worth breaking these patterns up into psychological and behavioral categories.

Psychological Patterns

Psychological patterns of disordered eating are concerned with how we think and feel about food and eating.

The most common psychological patterns of disordered eating include:

• Constantly thinking about food, eating and dieting
• Regimented food rules that dictate what, when and how much you allow yourself to eat
• All-or-none thinking around food (“chocolates are bad” and apples are good)
• A sense of superiority when adhering to a set of diet rules
• A profound sense of shame, guilt, and disgust when eating something you believe you shouldn’t have
• A tendency to hold irrational beliefs about food even when they’re not true (e.g., that certain foods are inherently fattening or cause weight gain in isolation).
• Irrational fears of eating certain foods

Behavioral Patterns

Behavioral patterns are much easier to observe or detect because we can see them in action.

Although they’re obvious to spot, many people go to great lengths towards hiding these types of behaviors.

• Skipping meals for weight loss purposes
• Fasting for 6 or more waking hours for weight control
• Loss of control eating
• Regular use of diet pills, water pills, or laxatives to lose weight
• Self-induced vomiting
• Obsessive-compulsive exercise regimes
• Exercising even under duress (e.g., when injured, sick etc.)
• Smoking to suppress one’s appetite
• Substituting food for supplements
• Chewing and spitting out food to avoid calorie retention
• Going on and off yo-yo diets (chronic dieting history)
• Eating in secret or away from people

What about Body Image?

You would have noticed that those characteristics of disordered eating do not encompass any elements of body image.

Although body image problems and each of these disordered eating features are inextricably linked, we’d argue that body doesn’t fall under the umbrella of disordered eating.

It’s its own umbrella and should be treated as such.

It warrants considering as separate constructs that each have independent influences on our psychological functioning.

Disordered Eating Versus Eating Disorders

Disordered eating and eating disorders are terms that are often used interchangeably.

While both terms are highly related, there are important distinctions you need to be aware of.

Eating disorders reflect a class of psychiatric conditions that require a person to meet a specific set of diagnostic criteria ¹American Psychiatric Association. (2013). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.: DSM 5. Virginia: American Psychiatric Association.

For example, for a person to meet criteria for binge-eating disorder, they will need to have engaged in at least one episode of binge eating a week over the past 3 months and had not practiced various types of inappropriate compensatory behaviors.

Disordered eating, however, can occur in people with and without an eating disorder – the severity, frequency and duration isn’t important.

People can engage in various restrictive yo-yo diets, be preoccupied with food, have regimented exercise patterns, or use water, diet, or weight loss pills without meeting the precise criteria for a clinically significant eating disorder.

This doesn’t mean that it isn’t serious or distressing to the individual or that it’s not important.

In fact, research shows that people who exhibit disordered eating behaviors experience comparable levels of distress to people with a diagnostic eating disorder ²Crow, S. J., Stewart Agras, W., Halmi, K., Mitchell, J. E., & Kraemer, H. C. (2002). Full syndromal versus subthreshold anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder: A multicenter study. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 32, 309-318.

What’s disordered for one might not be disordered for another

It’s important to be aware that disordered eating is highly individualized.

That is, what’s disordered for one may not be disordered for another.

What determines whether something is disordered is if the behavior negatively affects you.

If the behavior doesn’t affect you personally on any psychological, social, or physical domain, then it’s probably not a problem and wouldn’t be considered disordered.

However, many people who display certain patterns of disordered eating aren’t great at recognizing the negative effects they are having, so it’s important to take a step back, reflect, and carefully assess whether your behaviors and attitudes are taking a toll on you.

It’s highly likely that any of the psychological and behavioral patterns listed above are causing you harm, at least to some small extent.

For example, constantly thinking about or obsessive over food might take away your productivity at work; buying diet pills might be expensive and could be causing arguments with your partner; or continuing to stick to your strict exercise regime could be worsening your existing injury.

Because of this, it’s a good idea to try to address these patterns early, particularly since certain disordered eating features, like restrictive or chronic diets, often lead to full-blown eating disorders ³Stice, E. (2002). Risk and maintenance factors for eating pathology: a meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 825-848.

Disordered eating statistics

Let’s end this article off by presenting some statistics on the prevalence of disordered eating features in the general population.

This is needed for highlighting the importance and pervasiveness of certain disordered eating patterns.

• 40% of men felt that tracking their caloric intake contributed to certain disordered eating behaviors ⁴ Linardon, J., & Messer, M. (2019). My fitness pal usage in men: Associations with eating disorder symptoms and psychosocial impairment. Eating behaviors, 33, 13-17.
• 4% of men and 6% of women report engaging in binge eating ⁵ Mitchison, D., Hay, P. J., Slewa-Younan, S., & Mond, J. (2014). The changing demographic profile of eating disorder behaviors in the community. BMC Public Health, 14, 943. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-943.
• 2% of men and 4% of women report fasting for weight loss⁶Mitchison, D., Hay, P. J., Slewa-Younan, S., & Mond, J. (2014). The changing demographic profile of eating disorder behaviors in the community. BMC Public Health, 14, 943. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-943.
• 0.5% of men and 1.5% of women report engaging in purging behavior ⁷Mitchison, D., Hay, P. J., Slewa-Younan, S., & Mond, J. (2014). The changing demographic profile of eating disorder behaviors in the community. BMC Public Health, 14, 943. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-943.
• 8% of indigenous Australians report binge eating ⁸Hay, P. J., & Carriage, C. (2012). Eating disorder features in indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian Peoples. BMC public health, 12, 233.
• 12% of Finnish men reported using supplements or steroids to influence their build ⁹Raevuori A, Keski-Rahkonen A, Bulik C, Rose R, Rissanen A, Kaprio J. Muscle dissatisfaction in young adult men. Clin Pract Epidemiol Ment Health. 2006;2(1):6.
• The prevalence of binge eating over the past month in U.S individuals was 7.5% for men and 11.2% for women ¹⁰Striegel RH, Bedrosian R, Wang C, Schwartz S. Why men should be included in research on binge eating: results from a comparison of psychosocial impairment in men and women. Int J Eat Disord. 2012;45(2):233–40.
• Around 3.5% of men in Australia and Germany report engaging in driven or compulsive exercise ¹¹Mitchison, D., & Mond, J. (2015). Epidemiology of eating disorders, eating disordered behaviour, and body image disturbance in males: a narrative review. Journal of eating disorders, 3(1), 1-9.
• 12% of secondary school adolescents reported chew and spit behavior ¹²Aouad, P., Hay, P., Soh, N., Touyz, S., Mannan, H., & Mitchison, D. (2019). Chew and spit (CHSP) in a large adolescent sample: prevalence, impact on health-related quality of life, and relation to other disordered eating features. Eating Disorders, 1-14.