The Early Warning Signs of Disordered Eating
Trying to eat “clean,” work out more, or get fit can start off as a well-meaning push to improve health, until it quietly becomes all-consuming, food becomes anxiety provoking and the food thoughts - “noise” - takes over completely. Many of my clients started to feel anxious around food, body image, or exercise without even realising that their initial “drive for health” was, in fact, an early sign of disordered eating.
Spotting and understanding these warning signs can help you get support sooner and protect both your physical and emotional wellbeing.
So, What Is Disordered Eating?
Disordered eating describes unhealthy food habits or thoughts that may not meet the full criteria for an eating disorder but still cause distress or harm. It often involves:
Restricting food intake
Cutting out major food groups
Feelings of guilt or shame around eating
Creating and sticking to rigid food or exercise rules
Constant body comparison or dissatisfaction
Left unaddressed, these patterns can easily evolve and develop into full blow eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder. Recognising the early warning signs is key to prevention and recovery.
7 Early Warning Signs of Disordered Eating ⚠️
1. Food and Nutrition Become an Obsession
What might start as wanting to eat a little bit more “healthy” or “clean” can quickly morph into an obsession with ingredients, calorie counting, traffic light systems, portion guides, weighing food and may signal something deeper. Food and nutrition should nourish your body and soul, it should make you feel good, energetic, give pleasure, not create fear and anxiety!
2. Strict “Good” vs “Bad” Food Rules
You might find that you start to label foods “good” or “bad” or decide a whole food group is “bad” and to be avoided. Labelling foods like this, cutting out food group(s), or having lists of other “off-limits” foods can create unnecessary fear, shame and guilt around eating. Balanced nutrition should include flexibility, enjoyment, and variety.
3. Guilt or Anxiety After Eating
Feeling like you’ve “ruined” your progress, or that you have done something wrong, after eating certain foods is a BIG RED FLAG! Food is not a moral choice, it is nourishment, pleasure, and fuel.
4. Avoiding Social Meals
How can you eat with friends when they want to go to a restaurant that suddenly feels too scary, or they have said they want a pizza and film night but pizza is a banned food? The drive for “health” has taken over and if eating with friends feels stressful or you find yourself cancelling plans involving food, it might be time to explore your relationship with food as isolation is often one of the first signs of disordered eating.
5. Exercise as Punishment
Sure, you started because you just wanted to improve your fitness, but now it is an obsession. Perhaps you can only allow yourself to eat certain foods if you have moved for a specific amount of time that day, or maybe you need to exercise for a certain amount of time in order to not feel bad about yourself. Let’s be clear, movement is important for overall wellbeing, but moving your body should make you feel good! When exercise becomes about burning calories or “earning” food, it’s no longer healthy.
6. Constant Body Checking and Comparison
Regularly weighing or measuring yourself, checking mirrors, pinching, measuring your wrists - whatever it might be - or comparing your body to others can increase anxiety and distort self-image. It is really important to be aware of the fact at as these behaviours increase, it is highly likely that your perception of your body is warped and what you are seeing and telling yourself is an untrue representation of how others are viewing you. As you hyper-fixate on that one “problem” area, you can easily miss-judge how you as a whole are looking.
7. Physical and Emotional Changes
Fatigue, dizziness, feeling cold, irregular periods, poor concentration and digestive complaints are often signs your body isn’t getting adequate nutrition. Emotional symptoms like irritability, mood swings, withdrawal or anxiety can also be early indicators and shouldn’t be ignored.
When to Seek Help for Disordered Eating
You don’t need to “hit rock bottom” to deserve help. So often I hear, “I’m not sick enough” or there is a belief that “I’m not a good enough anorexic” or “I don’t deserve help”. But, let me be honest with you, if food, exercise, or body image are affecting your happiness or focus, it’s time to ask for help!
You can start by talking to:
Your GP or student health service
A registered dietitian or nutritional therapist specialising in eating disorder recovery (that’s me!)
A therapist or counsellor who understands body image and eating disorders (I can recommend a bunch of AMAZING people to help you!)
Healing your relationship with food isn’t about willpower! It is about curiosity, understanding what is going on for you, asking for support and giving yourself compassion. Nutrition in recovery means re-learning to trust your body again and rediscovering the joy in eating without fear or guilt.
Remember:
✨ You are so much more than your body!
✨ Every body is a good body.
✨ All bodies deserve nourishment and care!
✨ You do not need to earn your meals.
✨ You deserve peace, nourishment, and self-kindness!
If you resonate with any of the above, please take on board this gentle reminder - there is no “sick enough” and you do not have to face this alone. Help is available, and recovery is absolutely possible. 💛