Eating Disorders and Mental Health: What To Look For And How To Get Help
Are you struggling around food? Perhaps you’re worried about a loved one that you’ve noticed has lost a lot of weight recently, is going to the bathroom a lot after eating or behaving secretively around food? When it comes to eating disorders and mental health, knowledge is power. So read on to learn more about how to spot them and what you can do to recover.
What are the common types of eating disorders and what are the signs of eating disorders?
With regards to eating disorders and mental health, it’s important to know what to look for. If you know the signs, you’re one step closer to helping a loved one or healing yourself.
There are five main categories of eating disorders that professionals use to diagnose and treat people with disordered eating.
Anorexia nervosa is when a person:
Restricts their food intake
Harbours an overwhelming fear of gaining weight
Tends to have a distorted body image (i.e. they may see themselves as obese when they are in fact underweight)
May do extreme dieting and compulsive exercising
Other signs of anorexia:
- Pronounced weight loss
- Unhealthily underweight/very low BMI
- Skipping meals, eating tiny amounts, or rejecting any foods considered fattening
- Taking laxatives or medications to suppress hunger
- Making yourself sick to avoid gaining weight
- Excessive and often intrusive thoughts about food
- Reluctance to eat with other people
- Lying about the amount or frequency that they eat (‘I eat all the time, you just don’t see it’)
- Cutting food into tiny pieces or eating unusually slowly
- Lying about weight
- Wearing a lot of baggy clothes to hide a small frame
- In children/adolescents, delayed growth and puberty
- Rigid rituals regarding eating
- Frequently weighing yourself and seeing a lot of weight loss as a good thing
- Disagreeing or minimising it when others say the weight loss is serious or harmful
- In adult premenopausal women, periods stopping
- Loss of hair on the scalp
- Dry skin
- Downy hair growth on the body
Bulimia nervosa is when a person:
- Suffers cycles of very excessive eating (binges), followed by compulsory ‘purging’ behaviours (like vomiting, using laxatives, exercising compulsively, or fasting)
- A person with bulimia may be underweight, overweight, or of normal weight
Other signs of bulimia:
- Going to the bathroom a lot after food
- Being super critical of your shape and weight and obsessing about it a lot
- Intense fear of gaining weight
- Noticeable mood swings
- Obsessing about food and often planning binges
- Avoiding eating around others
- Feelings of guilt and shame
- Secrecy around eating habits
- Sleep problems
- Fatigue
- Lightheadedness
- Abdominal pain and bloating
- Irregular periods or periods stopping altogether
- Throat soreness from vomiting
- Swollen glands creating puffiness around your ears and the sides of your face
Binge-eating disorder is characterised by:
- Repeated bingeing – i.e. eating excessive amounts of food while feeling a loss of control and being unable to stop when full
- No consistent compensation behaviours or purging (as you’d see in bulimia)
Other signs of Binge-Eating Disorder
- Eating even when you’re not hungry
- Eating secretly
- Preferring to eat alone
- Feeling guilty, ashamed, or a sense of disgust after a binge
- Mood swings
- Hiding food and/or storing up supplies for binges
- Gaining weight (though this is not the case for every person with binge eating disorder)
Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID):
ARFID can vary greatly from person to person and the diagnosis includes a variety of problems and symptoms that may or may not coexist in any one person. But if you or someone you know is suffering from Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) you may notice:
- Restriction or avoidance of certain foods
- Fear of vomiting or choking
- Having sensory issues when it comes to food – being particularly sensitive to things like texture, temperature and smell
- Disinterest in eating
- Unlike eating disorders such as anorexia, ARFID behaviours are not motivated by body image worries.
Other signs of Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)
- Struggling to realise when you’re hungry
- Taking a long time to get through a meal/experiencing eating as a ‘chore’
- Skipping meals, particularly when engrossed in another activity
- Seeming to others like a ‘fussy eater’
- Eating a range of different foods but consuming far smaller amounts than what you need
- Feeling full very quickly and feeling unable to continue after a few bites
- Eating the same meals over and over again
- Always eating a different meal to the people you’re with
- Avoiding social events involving eating
- Sticking to foods of a similar colour (e.g. beige)
- Losing weight (or in a child, not putting on weight as expected)
- Having to take supplements to meet energy and nutrition needs
- Acquiring nutritional deficiencies (e.g. anaemia)
- Getting especially anxious during mealtimes
- Taking small bites/chewing very carefully
OSFED (Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder) is when:
- A person’s disordered eating patterns are clinically significant, but they don’t meet the standard full criteria for one of the other categories
- For example a person may binge and purge but more infrequently than is typical for bulimia. Or they may restrict their food but remain a normal weight.
So if you or someone you care about seems to be struggling with disordered eating without fitting neatly into one of the other categories, it’s possible you could be suffering with OSFED.
What mental illnesses can co-occur with eating disorders?
Eating disorders and mental health issues frequently go hand in hand. Many people with an eating disorder will also receive a diagnosis for at least one other mental health issue.
Mental health issues that commonly coexist with eating disorders include:
- Mood disorders (for example depression)
- Anxiety
- Obsessive compulsive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Personality disorders (e.g. borderline personality disorder)
- Neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and ADHD
However, physical comorbidities frequently feature too. Dr Evangelia Tsapakis, Consultant Psychiatrist at The London Psychiatry Centre and a leading expert on eating disorders says: “When it comes to eating disorders and mental health, what many people don’t realise is that these problems are metabolο-psychiatric disorders. In eating disorders, mental health issues meet metabolic abnormalities in the body. In other words, an eating disorder represents a physical problem as well as a mental health issue.”
Long-term impact of eating disorders: risks and complications
From heart health to bone health, from cognitive function to hormonal balance, if left unchecked eating disorders can impact virtually every system in the body.
So when it comes to eating disorders and mental health, the earlier you can seek help the better. Many physical complications from eating disorders improve or fully reverse once the eating disorder is arrested. And with the best treatment, full psychological recovery is possible.
How are eating disorders treated?
If you think you may have an eating disorder, a good first step is to see your GP.
Treatment for eating disorders and mental health will involve some form of talking therapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy for eating disorders (CBT-E). Nutritional support is commonly offered and sometimes, medication is advisable too. If you or your loved one is under 18 years old, treatment will often be delivered through a local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). Unfortunately, often these services have significant waiting lists.
Here at The London Psychiatry Centre, we offer fast access to specialist, tailored treatment for eating disorders covering the spectrum of diagnoses. Our leading edge eating disorders clinic is led by Dr Eva Tsapakis, Consultant Psychiatrist and internationally renowned eating disorders specialist. With decades of experience treating eating disorders and mental health, she has successfully worked with the most treatment-resistant cases – people who had all but given up hope of recovering from their eating disorders.
Our team includes the UK’s finest psychiatrists, psychologists, child psychologists and nutritionists. We also have medical doctors on site with a wealth of experience in the problems frequently intertwined in eating disorders (like insulin issues). As such we have the necessary medical expertise to address both mind and body. We offer a full-service, individually tailored approach to your recovery – without waiting lists.
You don’t have to suffer. You can recover.
Make an appointment by calling us on 020 7580 4224 or email info@psychiatrycentre.co.uk
