What’s on the Plate: Disordered Eating or Eating Disorder?

Diet culture's destructive relationship with food has made eating disorders and disordered eating habits a terrible fixture in the lives of many people. Combined with the fact that we live in a time when pop psychology on social media frequently replaces facts and data-based insights, the terms ‘eating disorder’ and ‘disordered eating’ are becoming interchangeable (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Eating Disorders: About More Than Food

Go to source). On the one hand, the digital age's increased knowledge of mental health has surely helped people recognize disordered eating practices and, on occasion, spurred them to concentrate on improving their relationship with food.

The association of one's broken connection with food with a very serious, very lethal mental health illness like an eating disorder, on the other hand, just adds to the pandemic-spawned infodemic around health and wellness.

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Disordered Eating Vs. Eating Disorder

Nonetheless, their symptoms are frequently so similar that it can be difficult for a non-professional to distinguish between the two. Both eating disorders and disordered eating share a slew of symptoms, including binge eating, feeling out of control around food, improper weight-management methods that result in frequent weight fluctuations, and, most crucially, a distorted body image.

Therefore, it's not the fault of the folks who mix up the two. Nonetheless, consulting a professional before making an eating disorder diagnosis based only on internet research may be a good idea in this case.

"When someone’s eating patterns take them away from normal functioning, this can be a strong indication of an eating disorder," explains Temimah Zucker, a therapist who has struggled with an eating disorder herself.

"This can include a woman who will not go out with friends because of her fears about their judgment while she eats. Or perhaps an individual does not attend work or school on more than one occasion due to behavior like a compulsion to exercise. While these examples may sound extreme, those struggling often cite impairments of their social functioning as well as other obligations, due to their eating disorders."

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Is Disordered Eating a Mental Health Illness

Disordered eating, unlike eating disorders, is not recognized as a mental health illness by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders. It is believed that 50% of the population suffers from disordered eating behaviors, which are food habits influenced by factors other than hunger and nutrition. Yet, only 9% of the global population is reported to be suffering from various clinical eating disorders.

In other words, while struggling with disordered eating can cause an individual to obsess over what they're eating and how it affects their body, their obsession with food does not have the same impact on their lives as having an eating disorder does—due to the consistency and severity of the fixation among the latter group, as well as the impact on their overall health.

Zucker explains that the obsession with food in an eating disorder can be 'all-consuming,' and 'impair focus', the ability to stay present, and sleep, among other things.

"There’s a fine line between disordered eating and an eating disorder. Disordered eating is generally mild without a significant impact on someone’s mental or physical health or self-worth," notes Dr. Katherine Hill, an eating disorder specialist.

"Generally, people with disordered eating aren’t struggling with common medical or psychiatric complications of an eating disorder, like mood changes, menstrual irregularities, gastrointestinal symptoms, bone density, or changes to heart function."

Even if their eating habits aren't altering their lives, disordered eating comes with its own set of challenges, ranging from nervousness about trying new foods to guilt-driven compensation for eating more than anticipated to skipping meals, crash dieting, and even covertly snacking.

These experiences may not uproot one's life, but they surely upset one's emotional well-being, demonstrating how a strained connection with food can impair one's quality of life.

Furthermore, Zucker adds that disordered eating patterns can eventually manifest as a diagnosable eating disorder, emphasizing the importance of not dismissing disturbed eating. She explains that not every case of disordered eating develops into a full-blown disorder, but she underlines the necessity of seeking help from dieticians, nutritionists, or therapists — as soon as one discovers something is wrong with their connection with food.

It is also important to recognize that what appears to be disordered eating to an outside observer may truly be an eating disorder.

"People are often very skilled at hiding their eating disorder, and it might initially appear [milder] than it is. Parents and carers are often shocked to learn not only that their child has an eating disorder, but that the eating disorder has been going on for a while without anybody knowing," Dr. Hill, who is also a pediatrician, points out.

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Society’s Obsession with Beauty Standards

Society's obsession with having the perfect or, ‘impossible’ body is the basis of the bad relationship people establish with food, whether it manifests as an eating disorder or disordered eating habits. Yet when the pursuit of beauty comes at the expense of our health, we realize it's time to put a stop to diet culture.

Instead of labeling our culture's obsession with unhealthy and unattainable ideals as abnormal and striving to mend it, we label people's perfectly natural reaction to this toxicity as abnormal, manifesting as a loss of faith in our bodies and a tendency to reject their demands.

It's unlikely that the frequency of eating disorders or disordered eating will decrease unless we learn to celebrate, and not simply practice, performative body positivity, which ignores the reality that beauty comes in a variety of shapes and sizes and that there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to good health.

Reference:

1. Eating Disorders: About More Than Food - (https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/eating-disorders)

Source-Medindia