Types of eating disorders
Find out what an eating disorder is, and learn about some of the more common eating disorders - including bulimia, anorexia and binge eating.
What is an eating disorder?
An eating disorder is a medical diagnosis based on your eating patterns. It involves medical tests on your weight, blood and body mass index (BMI).
An eating problem means any relationship with food that you find difficult. Not every eating problem will be diagnosed as a disorder.
Eating disorders are a diagnosed type of eating problem.
Watch: Do I have an eating disorder?
Watch our animation to learn more about eating disorders, including signs and symptoms, and where to get help.
Difficulty getting a diagnosis
Getting a formal eating disorder diagnosis isn't always easy.
For example:
- If your problems with eating aren't easy for your doctor to categorise, they might not give you a diagnosis.
- You may have a very difficult relationship with food which affects your mental health, but doesn't fit into any current diagnoses.
- You may be experiencing more than one eating disorder, or symptoms from multiple disorders.
But understanding feelings and behaviours linked to certain eating disorders can be helpful - even if you don't have a diagnosis. Or if you prefer to consider your experiences in a non-medical way.
Bulimia
If you get a bulimia diagnosis (known as bulimia nervosa), you may experience a cycle of what's called bingeing and purging.
- Bingeing is eating large amounts of food in one go. You might do this when you're struggling with feelings or problems in your life.
- Purging is acting to get rid of the food you have eaten after bingeing. You might feel guilty or ashamed of what you've eaten.
Bulimia and your feelings
If you experience bulimia, you might feel:
- Shame and guilt
- Hatred towards your body
- That you are fat
- Scared of being found out by family and friends
- Depressed or anxious
- Lonely, especially if no one knows about your diagnosis
- Very low, sad and upset
- Quick or sudden changes in your mood
- Stuck in a cycle of feeling out of control and trying to regain it
- Numb, as if feelings are blocked out by bingeing or purging
Bulimia and your actions
If you experience bulimia, you might:
- Eat lots of food in one go (binge)
- Go through daily cycles of eating, feeling guilty, purging, feeling hungry and eating again
- Binge on foods that you think are bad for you
- Starve yourself in between binges
- Eat in secret
- Crave only certain types of food
- Try to get rid of food you've eaten (purge) by making yourself sick, using laxatives or exercising a lot
Bulimia and your body
While experiencing bulimia, you might:
- Stay roughly the same weight, or experience frequent weight changes
- Be dehydrated, which can cause bad skin
- Get irregular periods or none at all, if you usually menstruate
- Harm your teeth and get a sore throat from stomach acid, by making yourself sick
- Develop irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), stretched colon, constipation or heart disease, if you use laxatives
James's experience with eating disorders
James was a teenager when he developed an eating problem. Stereotyping meant it took time for people to realise what James was experiencing. Watch James' story to learn about barriers to getting help, how yoga helped him accept his body and find his community.
Anorexia
If you get an anorexia diagnosis (known as anorexia nervosa), you’re not eating enough food. This means you're not getting the energy you need to stay healthy.
Some people think anorexia is about slimming and dieting, but it's much more complex. At its core, it's often connected to low self-esteem, negative self-image and feelings of intense distress.
Anorexia and your feelings
If you experience anorexia, you might feel:
- Unable to think about anything other than food
- Like you need to be perfect or you're never good enough
- Lonely, especially if no one knows about your diagnosis
- A need for control, that you feel you lose by eating
- That you're hiding things from family and friends
- That you are fat and scared of putting on weight
- That losing weight isn't enough
- Like you want to disappear
- Angry if someone challenges you about your weight or food intake
- Tired and not interested in things you normally enjoy
- Like you cannot see a way out, even depressed or suicidal
- Anxious or panicky, especially around mealtimes
- Like it's an achievement to deny yourself food or over-exercise
I was in so deep with the disorder that I didn’t believe that I could be helped, or even wanted to be.
Anorexia and your actions
If you experience anorexia, you might:
- Reduce your food intake or totally stop eating
- Spend a lot of time counting calories of everything you eat
- Hide food or secretly throw it away
- Avoid 'dangerous' foods, like those with high amounts of calories or fat
- Read recipe books and cook meals for others, without eating them yourself
- Use drugs that claim to reduce your appetite or speed up digestion
- Spend your time thinking about losing weight, checking and weighing yourself
- Exercise a lot, with strict rules about how much you must do
- Develop very structured eating times
- Make up rules about food – for example listing 'good' and 'bad' types or only eating certain colours of food
I started starving myself as a means of control. Everything else had been taken out of my control, but no one could force me to eat. I'd enjoy and crave the feeling of my stomach being... empty.
Anorexia and your body
While experiencing anorexia, you might:
- Weigh less than you do normally, or should do for your age and height
- Lose weight very fast
- Become physically underdeveloped, especially if anorexia starts before puberty
- Feel very cold and weak
- Move around more slowly than normal
- Have irregular periods or none at all, if you usually menstruate
- Lose your hair or start to have very thin hair
- Develop fine fuzzy hair on your arms and face, called lanugo
- Lose interest in sex, or find you're not able to have or enjoy sex
- Find it hard to concentrate
- Develop fragile bones or problems like osteoporosis – this is a disease that makes your bones break easily
Binge eating disorder
If you get a diagnosis for binge eating disorder, you might feel unable to stop eating, even if you want to.
With binge eating disorder, you might rely on food to make you feel better. You might also use food to hide difficult feelings. It is sometimes described as 'compulsive eating'.
Binge eating disorder and your feelings
If you experience binge eating disorder, you might feel:
- Out of control
- As if you can't stop eating
- Ashamed of how much you eat
- Lonely and empty
- Very low, even worthless
- Unhappy about your body
- Stressed and anxious
Binge eating disorder and your actions
If you experience binge eating disorder, you might:
- Eat large amounts all at once (bingeing)
- Eat without really thinking about it, especially when doing other things
- Often eat unhealthy food
- Eat for comfort when you feel stressed, upset, bored or unhappy
- Eat until you feel uncomfortably full or sick
- Hide how much you are eating
- Find dieting hard whenever you try it.
I dread any event with a buffet. Because I know I'll eat and I'll keep eating and I won't even enjoy it but I'll eat because I feel somehow I have to. I'll eat even when I'm feeling full, when I'm feeling bloated, feeling pain in my gut, feeling sick.
Binge eating disorder and your body
While experiencing binge eating disorder, you might:
- Put on weight
- Feel sick a lot
- Have shortness of breath
- Get sugar highs and lows, which means having bursts of energy then feeling very tired
- Develop health problems, such as acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
- Develop problems linked to being overweight – for example type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, or joint and muscle pain
Binge eating disorder: it felt momentous to have a calm, ordinary conversation about it
The first GP I told was clueless. But another GP encouraged me to tell her more, and I learnt about the help I could get.
Other specified feeding and eating disorder (OSFED)
If you get an OSFED diagnosis, you have an eating disorder. You may experience any feelings, actions or body changes linked to other eating disorders. But you don't meet all the criteria for anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder.
This doesn't mean that your eating disorder is less serious than others.
OSFED just means that your disorder doesn't neatly fit into current diagnoses. Getting a diagnosis of OSFED can help you access treatment and support.
Previously, OSFED was known as ‘eating disorder not otherwise specified’ (EDNOS).
For more details, see Beat's information about OSFED.
I was assessed by my local eating disorder service and was given a diagnosis of EDNOS. I managed to get my eating back on track. I continue to work on the feelings with the help of my therapist and am very much in recovery.
Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)
If you get a diagnosis of ARFID, you'll strongly feel the need to avoid certain foods (or all foods). This might be because of smell, taste or texture. The idea of eating may fill you with anxiety.
ARFID does not tend to be linked to body image issues. It's more anxiety about the process of eating itself.
For more details, see Beat's information about ARFID.
My eating disorder has never been about body image or control, and I've had it for as long as I can remember. When I'm faced with certain foods I feel a reaction in the pit of my stomach like someone has put a plate of the most disgusting things in front of me. I can only equate the sensation to walking past an open sewer.
Pica
If you get a diagnosis of pica, you'll often eat things that aren't food.
The things you eat tend to have no nutritional value. Some examples may be chalk, metal or paint. This can be very damaging to your body.
For more details, see Beat's information about pica.
Rumination disorder
If you get a diagnosis of rumination disorder, you'll regularly regurgitate your food. Regurgitating means bringing food back up that you've already eaten and swallowed.
You won't have a physical health problem to explain it. You might re-chew, re-swallow or spit out the food you regurgitate.
For more details, see Beat's information about rumination disorder.
Diabulimia
Diabulimia is something that can affect people with type 1 diabetes. It is a term for when you deliberately restrict or stop taking your insulin to control how many calories your body absorbs from food.
‘Diabulimia’ is not a formal medical diagnosis, so your doctor might not know about it. But it is a term that some people with type 1 diabetes use to describe this experience.
Some people also use the term ‘T1ED’ or 'T1DE', which is short for ‘type 1 diabetes with an eating disorder’. You may hear this used to describe living with type 1 diabetes and experiencing an eating disorder, including restricting your insulin.
This information was published in January 2021. We will revise it in 2024.
References and bibliography available on request.
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