Blog content: Why Eating Disorder Recovery is About More than Just the Food

Experts by experience: Young advisor, Amelie

Eating disorders are often misunderstood as being just about food or weight. In reality, they are complex mental health conditions that affect how a person thinks, feels, and relates to themselves and the world around them. While restoring regular eating patterns is an important part of physical recovery, to recover mentally, often emotions, relationships, identity, and the pressures young people face in their daily lives must be addressed.

For many young people, eating disorders can become a way of coping with difficult emotions. Feelings can sometimes be too intense to express directly. Food-related behaviours may then become a way to manage or control those emotions. For example, restrictive eating and purging can become a way of managing complex emotions like fear, sadness and anger (Espeset et al., 2012). Not only that, but research also shows that eating disorder behaviours are sometimes used to manage positive emotions when, over time, positive feelings such as joy and interest become entangled with unhelpful eating disorder behaviours (Overton et al., 2005). This leads to a reliance on the eating disorder to manage negative feelings and increase positive ones, which can often feel helpful in the short term, but over time maintains the eating disorder. So, it is important that recovery involves learning new ways of managing emotions, rather than just removing eating disorder behaviours without finding a new coping strategy.

Eating disorders can also become closely tied to a young person’s sense of identity. For some, behaviours around food may create a feeling of control in an uncertain environment, or a safety blanket, acting as a familiar identity despite the suffering it can cause (Nemeckova & Hricova, 2025). Often, those with an eating disorder have low self-esteem (Krauss et al., 2023) and may overestimate the impact of their body in how other people feel about them (Mendelson et al., 2002). This means that for people with an eating disorder, their weight and body shape often has more of an impact on how they feel about themselves and how they think others feel about them, than in people without an eating disorder. This makes behavioural changes around food extremely daunting. Supporting recovery means helping young people rebuild self-worth and identity beyond food and body shape and encouraging a broader sense of who they are.

Eating disorders can affect relationships with family, friends, and peers. Mealtimes may become stressful, and it is common for young people withdraw socially and become lonely (Rotenberg & Sangha, 2015). This means that recovery is about more than just maintaining positive eating habits but includes rebuilding trust and connection. Supportive relationships can play a huge role in recovery, providing children with hope (Ramjan et al., 2024). This is why family therapy is often recommended for those with eating disorders, to maintain and strengthen these positive sources of social support (and not because parents are “to blame” for the condition).

Children and teenagers grow up surrounded by messages about bodies, appearance, and “healthy” lifestyles. While social media is not entirely to blame for eating disorders as they are clearly complex and existed well before its influence, these platforms can promote comparison and unrealistic expectations around how bodies should look, leading to negative body image (Dane & Bhattia, 2023). Social media can also spread misinformation about nutrition and healthy eating, with a significant number of creators who talk about this topic lacking relevant credentials (Diyab et al., 2025). However, our society is also increasingly geared towards weight loss, with calories showcased on menus, discourse about weight loss drugs and dieting as a common practice. This creates an environment where disordered rules around food are reinforced by messages in society, and reverting eating disorder behaviours involves not simply changing lunch options but dissenting from the majority. Part of recovery may involve helping young people develop a more balanced and compassionate relationship with their bodies, while learning to question harmful cultural messages about food and appearance.

So, eating disorder recovery is not just about the food. They are complex conditions and, while food is sometimes the most visible part of the illness, recovery involves much deeper work around emotions, identity, relationships, and self-understanding. If you are somewhere in the middle of recovery where you have changed your dietary habits, but nothing has changed in your mind, know that you are not alone, you are not unfixable, and you are not doing anything wrong. With time and with the right understanding and care, it is possible to rebuild healthier relationships not only with food, but also with yourself.

Helpful resources

Beat eating disorder charity website, for general information: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/

Advice on manging difficult emotions:

Identity and values activity:

References

Dane, A., & Bhatia, K. (2023). The social media diet: A scoping review to investigate the association between social media, body image and eating disorders amongst young people. PLOS Global Public Health, 3(3), e0001091.

Diyab, R., Grgurevic, J., & Roy, R. (2025). Exploring nutrition misinformation on social media platforms. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 84(OCE1), E8.

Espeset, E. M., Gulliksen, K. S., Nordbø, R. H., Skårderud, F., & Holte, A. (2012). The link between negative emotions and eating disorder behaviour in patients with anorexia nervosa. European Eating Disorders Review, 20(6), 451-460.

Krauss, S., Dapp, L. C., & Orth, U. (2023). The link between low self-esteem and eating disorders: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Clinical psychological science, 11(6), 1141-1158.

Němečková, K., & Hricová, A. (2025). Eating disorders as a form of control and silent protest. J Nurs Soc Stud Public Health Rehabil, 3, 4.

Mendelson, B. K., McLaren, L., Gauvin, L., & Steiger, H. (2002). The relationship of self‐esteem and body esteem in women with and without eating disorders. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 31(3), 318-323.

Ramjan, L. M., Smith, B. W., Miskovic‐Wheatley, J., Pathrose, S. P., & Hay, P. J. (2024). Social support for young people with eating disorders—An integrative review. International journal of mental health nursing, 33(6), 1615-1636.

Rotenberg, K. J., & Sangha, R. (2015). The relation between Bulimic symptoms and the social withdrawal syndrome during early adolescence. Eating Behaviors, 19, 177-180.

Overton, A., Selway, S., Strongman, K., & Houston, M. (2005). Eating disorders—The regulation of positive as well as negative emotion experience. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 12(1), 39-56.