General Article Disordered eating and how to break the cycle

Topic Selected: Eating Disorders Book Volume: 390

By Talia Cecchele, Registered Dietitian

Unlike eating disorders which are classified using The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), disordered eating has no official definition. Generally, it refers to disturbed and abnormal eating behaviours which might include skipping meals, restrictive dieting or rigid rules around eating e.g. removing a major food group from the diet.

The eating disorders charity Beat estimates that approximately 1.25 million people in the UK have a diagnosed eating disorder falling under four categories: anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder (BED) and Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED). It is thought that in reality it could be double amount as many people do not seek help or have access to it so are not captured in the figures. We could speculate that a large majority of people in the UK are engaging in disordered eating behaviour but it is unclear in the research and difficult to estimate...

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