Common Questions

If you have Anorexia, you may have an intense fear of gaining weight. Some describe this as a constant fear of “becoming fat.” Desperate to avoid this, you may do any of the following to prevent weight gain:

• Restricting the amount or types of food you eat (dieting or fasting)
• Burning calories by exercising a lot more than most people
• Ridding your body  of calories quickly (purging) after eating snacks or meals. This may be done through:

• Making yourself vomit (self-induced vomiting)
• Taking pills such as diet pills, laxatives or diuretics

You might view your body shape or size differently than others. You might feel you are overweight, or at risk of becoming overweight, when other people tell you that you are normal weight or underweight.

If you have Bulimia, you likely feel extremely unhappy about your present body shape and size. You may also feel overwhelmed, stressed, and even out of control. These feelings can lead to binge eating, which is often followed by purging your body of extra calories through behaviors such as:

• Self-induced vomiting
• Using pills (laxatives or diuretics) to cause food/drink to pass through your body quickly
• Exercising intensely or for long amounts of time
• Restricting food (fasting)

You may find yourself engaging in these behaviors daily, or 1 or more times per week.

If you have Binge Eating Disorder (BED), you may constantly feel under pressure to perform at high levels at work, school or home. This sense of pressure often leads to altered eating habits–sometimes causing you to skip meals during the day. Irregular eating along with with high stress levels can lead to eating extremely large amounts of food (binging) at other times. People with BED engage in binge-eating behaviors on an increasingly regular basis. The amount of food eaten during a binge is generally more than most people can eat at one time. You might also experience:

• Eating when you are not hungry
• Eating until you are uncomfortably full
• Eating alone because you feel embarrassed about your eating behaviors
• Feeling sad, angry, guilty or disgusted after a binge eating episode

You may find yourself engaging in these behaviors between 1 and 14 or more times per week.

Unlike other eating disorders, people with ARFID do not engage in disordered eating because of concerns over their body weight, shape or size. Instead, if you have ARFID, you might avoid eating certain foods, or categories of foods because you:

• Generally lack interest in eating or in food
• Dislike the textures, tastes or smells of many foods
• Worry about possible health risks of certain types of foods

Others may have thought of you as a “picky eater” at a young age. In some people, this can become so extreme that it causes problems such as having:

• A lower body weight than expected for your age or size
• Extremely low levels of important vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in your body (nutritional deficiency)
• Difficulty concentrating at school, work or home

Your food avoidance may cause you to need nutrition support through tube feedings or dietary supplements. Despite this, you might continue disordered eating behaviors, causing you to feel a great deal of social and emotional distress.