Anorexia can make eating, movement, and body image feel controlled by intense fear and rigid rules. You may restrict what foods you eat or how much of what you eat. Sometimes people restrict how much water or fluids in hopes of changing their weight. You may feel afraid of gaining weight, exercise despite exhaustion or injury, or become preoccupied with food, calories, how your body looks, or the need to feel in control. You might even avoid things you once enjoyed just because of how you look or do things you do not enjoy because of the idea that they could change how your body looks.
Anorexia does not have one particular “look.” People of any body size, gender, age, or background can experience it, and you do not need to be underweight for your eating disorder to be serious or deserving of care.
Over time, restriction can affect your concentration, mood, relationships, energy, and physical health. Anorexia is a serious illness with potentially life-threatening medical complications, which is why treatment often involves support from a therapist, registered dietitian, medical provider, and other professionals as needed.
Recovery is possible. Treatment can help you understand what keeps the eating disorder going, gradually challenge fear and rigidity, and build a life in which food, exercise, weight, and body image take up less space.
Anorexia Nervosa
What this can look like
Changes in Weight or Growth
Experiencing significant changes in weight, difficulty maintaining a weight that supports your body’s needs, or changes in expected growth and development.
Food & Body Thoughts Taking Up a Lot of Space
Spending a lot of time thinking about food, eating, calories, weight, shape, or your body. These thoughts may make it difficult to focus on other parts of your life.
Restricting Food
Eating less than your body needs, limiting certain foods or food groups, skipping meals, or following increasingly rigid rules about what, when, or how much you can eat.
Fear of Weight Gain or Body Changes
Feeling very afraid of gaining weight or experiencing changes in your body, even when those changes may be important for your health or recovery.
Compulsive Exercise
Feeling pressure to exercise even when you’re tired, injured, sick, or would rather rest, or feeling anxious or guilty when you’re unable to exercise as planned.
Rules & Rituals Around Eating
Feeling like food or meals need to happen in a particular way, such as cutting food into small pieces, eating foods in a certain order, taking a long time to eat, or following specific routines around meals.
Pulling Away From Other People
Avoiding meals, restaurants, celebrations, or other social situations involving food or your body, or gradually spending less time with friends and family.
Difficulty Recognizing How Much You’re Struggling
Having a hard time seeing the impact that eating, exercise, or weight-related changes are having on your health and daily life—or wondering whether things are really “bad enough” to need support.
Changes in How Your Body Feels
Experiencing fatigue, dizziness, feeling faint, feeling cold frequently, changes in sleep or concentration, digestive concerns, changes in menstrual cycles (for AFAB individuals), or other physical changes related to not getting enough nutrition.
Changes in Mood
Feeling more anxious, irritable, down, overwhelmed, or emotionally disconnected, particularly as thoughts and rules around food, exercise, or your body become more consuming.
Your relationship with food and your body doesn’t have to stay this way
Eating disorder patterns can become so familiar that it’s hard to imagine things feeling different. Treatment can help you understand what’s keeping you stuck and begin building more flexibility, freedom, and trust around food and your body.