An eating disorder is a medical diagnosis based on your eating patterns and medical tests on your weight, blood and body mass index (BMI). This page lists common eating disorders and other disordered eating diagnoses. It is possible to experience problem eating without a medical diagnosis. Described below are the three most common eating disorders

Bulimia nervosa

If you experience bulimia, you may find that you eat large amounts of food in one go because you feel upset or worried (binging). You may then feel guilty or ashamed after binging and want to get rid of the food you have eaten (purging).

Signs and symptoms 

• eat lots of food in one go (binge)
• go through cycles of eating, feeling guilty, purging, feeling hungry and eating again throughout the day
• eat foods that you think are bad for you when you binge
• starve yourself in between binges
• eat in secret
• crave certain types of food
• try to get rid of food you’ve eaten (purge) by making yourself sick, using laxatives or exercising excessively.
• stay roughly the same weight, or you might go from being overweight to underweight quite often
• dehydrated, which can cause bad skin
• if you menstruate, your periods might become irregular or stop altogether

Anorexia nervosa

If you get an anorexia diagnosis, this is because you are not eating enough food to get the energy you need to stay healthy. Sometimes people assume anorexia is just about slimming and dieting, but it is often connected to very low self-esteem, negative self-image and feelings of intense distress.

Signs and symptoms

• reduce your food intake or stop eating altogether
• count calories of all your food and spend a lot of time thinking about them
• hide food or secretly throw it away
• think about losing weight all the time
• exercise a lot and have strict rules about how much you need to do
• develop very structured eating habits and rules
• check and weigh your body all the time.
• weigh less than you should or lose weight very fast
• you might become physically underdeveloped (in particular if anorexia starts before puberty)
• Feel weak or cold
• if you menstruate, your periods might become irregular or stop altogether
• you may find it hard to concentrate

Binge eating disorder

If you have binge eating disorder you might feel that you can’t stop yourself from eating, even if you want to. It is sometimes described as compulsive eating. If you experience binge eating disorder, you might rely on food to make you feel better or to hide difficult feelings.

Signs and symptoms

• pick at food all day, eat large amounts all at once (bingeing)
• eat for comfort when you feel stressed, upset, bored or unhappy
• hide how much you are eating
• eat until you feel uncomfortably full or sick
• weight gain
• breathlessness
• nausea
• sugar highs and crashes (having bursts of energy followed by feeling very tired)

Treatment

• • A CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) practitioner helps a client to challenge unhelpful thoughts and behaviours by thinking and talking about them.
  • Family intervention is a type of talking treatment for relatives or carers of people who are diagnosed with an eating disorder. It can help relatives or carers work out how best to support you and find ways of coping and solving problems together. 

• A doctor might suggest medication to lift or stabilize your mood