Eating Disorders Awareness Week: It’s Not Just About Food

by Suzie Booth, Psychotherapist (MSc. MBACP Accred.)

When most people think about eating disorders, they think about food.

Too much food. Too little food. Picky eating. Dieting. Control.

But eating disorders are rarely about food.

They are about distress. They are about coping. They are about survival strategies that, over time, become painfully rigid.

During Eating Disorders Awareness Week, it’s important for us to widen the conversation. Because many people are struggling in ways that are not always visible, not always stereotypical, and not always recognised.

Eating Disorders Don’t Always Look How We Expect

There is still a very persistent image in public consciousness of what an eating disorder 'looks like'. It's usually...

Someone very thin. Someone visibly unwell. Someone who's struggle is obvious.

But eating disorders exist across all body sizes, ages, genders, and life circumstances.

Someone may be:

• Maintaining a 'normal' weight

• Highly successful at work

• Socially engaged

• Smiling, functioning, coping

And still be deeply trapped in disordered eating patterns.

Many people spend years being told they're 'fine' because they don’t match an outdated stereotype.

It’s Often About Emotion, Not Eating

Disordered eating behaviours frequently develop as ways of managing overwhelming internal experiences.

Food restriction can numb. Bingeing can soothe. Purging can relieve unbearable tension. Rigid rules can create an illusion of safety.

At its core, an eating disorder is often an attempt to regulate feelings that feel intolerable. Feelings like shame, anxiety, grief, fear; a sense of not being enough.

The behaviours may look irrational from the outside, but psychologically they make painful sense.

They work... until they don’t.

Control Is Usually a Symptom, Not the Cause

People often describe eating disorders as being about control.

But control is rarely the starting point.

Control usually emerges in environments where someone feels:

• Overwhelmed

• Unsafe

• Judged

• Unsupported

• Deeply uncertain

Food becomes one small area where certainty feels possible.

“I can’t control my life, but I can control this.”

What begins as a coping mechanism gradually becomes a prison.

The Role of Shame

Shame sits quietly at the centre of many eating disorders.

Not guilt (“I did something wrong”), but shame (“there is something wrong with me.”)

Shame drives secrecy. Secrecy fuels isolation. Isolation strengthens the disorder.

Many people struggling with eating difficulties are not just battling behaviours; they are battling an internal narrative that tells them they are weak, dramatic, or failing.

They are not.

Eating disorders are not a choice. They are not vanity. They are not attention-seeking.

They are serious mental health conditions.

Recovery Is Not Just About Eating Normally

Recovery is often misunderstood as simply fixing eating.

But true recovery is deeper and more complex.

It involves:

• Rebuilding a relationship with food

• Rebuilding a relationship with the body

• Rebuilding a relationship with emotions

• Rebuilding a relationship with the self

Because underneath the behaviours are usually unmet needs, unprocessed pain, and protective adaptations that once served an important purpose.

If You’re Struggling

If eating feels stressful, obsessive, chaotic, or emotionally loaded for you, you are not alone. And you do not need to wait until things feel 'bad enough.'

Early support matters. Gentle support matters. Compassionate support matters.

Eating difficulties exist on a spectrum, and struggling does not require a diagnosis to be valid.

If You’re Supporting Someone

If someone you love is struggling, it can be frightening and confusing.

One of the most powerful things you can offer is not advice, but safety.

Less:

“Just eat.” “You look fine.” “Why are you doing this?”

More:

“I’m here.” “I’m not judging you.” “You don’t have to handle this alone.”

Eating disorders thrive in silence and misunderstanding. They soften in the presence of empathy and support.