Can Dieting Cause Eating Disorders?
Dieting, an eating disorder gateway?
TW: dieting thoughts/patterns, weight loss, eating disorders
I have been thinking lately about my own healing journey from an eating disorder and what the start of that really looked like. As anyone knows who has or had an eating disorder, it doesn’t start in one day. You don’t just suddenly think to yourself, “Oh, I would like to have an eating disorder!” It is more of a gradual, slippery slope into eating disorder thoughts and patterns, so much so that you might not even realize it. Today I want to talk about what the start of that slope looked like for me and likely many others.
If I think back, I believe the desire to change my body, lose weight and therefore begin dieting started around 6th grade (12 years old). I was just starting puberty around that time which for me looked like widening hips and butt which was then commented on by family members in ways that made me think this was not okay. To illustrate this point more specifically we live in a society that values thinness and especially during this time the very straight-shaped, very thin model type was “in.” Before puberty my body looked more like that, I had a very straight frame and not many curves as is often the case in girl’s of that age. Therefore when my body was changing this translated in my head that this change was bad, a failing on my part, to control my body. I was eating more (because I was growing) and when this was commented on I made the connection that eating more = growing = bad.
Again, I cannot pinpoint the day where these dieting patterns started coming in, but I can start to see it when I first wanted to become a vegetarian. I know this really was rooted in my desire for better animal treatment, but I also know it was a way for me to start having control over my food intake while still living under my parents’ roof.
I remember my mom would causally diet and around this time I started joining her, it felt like a bonding experience and I can still remember the excitement of new diet and the feeling of sacrifice when we were “good” and only ate the foods that were on the list of approval. This would last for a few weeks, slowly drop off and we would go back to our normal routine, only to start again in many 6 months of so.
I then remember I took these dieting patterns more under the radar, I wanted to lose lots of weight to the point when even then I knew it wasn’t going to be seen as healthy. Bringing in how my body image was at the time I knew it was tied to feelings of wanting to be as small as possible. I very much wanted to be the Manic Pixie Dream Girl that needed to be saved from herself. I wanted to be so broken that people noticed my broken-ness.
In early high school I started on the covert diets like the Special K one (where you eat two bowls of cereal or bars a day instead of meals) and skipping meals. I then tried fasts all while convincing myself that I was “cleansing my body” to the point where my GI tract was so messed up I had to be rushed to the doctor for severe stomach pains only to show that I was so constipated that almost my entire GI tract was full. (At the time I was so happy the doctor didn’t “catch me” but now it makes me so sad to see that this prominent red flag was not addressed.) There were many other “dieting” things that I did around this time but I want to not overload this newsletter with potentially triggering things.
This continued throughout high school and into early college. My primary eating disorder behaviors had started in 8th grade and these common dieting behaviors were just adding fuel to the fire. I then went on to study to become a dietitian and in the course of healing one eating disorder I started to develop new patterns. Finally towards the middle-end of college I was on a course of healing and true recovery.
So, what about others?
According to Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Resch, “35% of so-called “normal” dieters progress to pathological dieting. Of those, 20-25% will progress to partial or full-blown eating disorders.” This prevalence is only increasing and I personally have never worked with a patient or client with eating disorders that didn’t start with some kind of dieting thoughts about food, even if they were not weight-related.
Recovery is so difficult not only because it takes so much devotion to heal yourself but also because we live in a society where dieting is so normalized. I see a lot of shame and guilt in my clients coming for help with that healing because it was a slippery slope that they feel got away from them. A lot of times it is this sense that dieting is okay but then they took it too far. I give so much compassion to clients because dieting it not normal, dieting is disordered eating that society has normalized. You are not broken because you have “failed” at dieting and you are not broken if things have “gotten away from you”.
That is why I like to say that I work with people with eating disorders and disordered eating because I see that line as so blurred. In fact I don’t even see it as a line, but more of a spectrum where people can be going from one end to the other or progressing along it. I see dieting as harmful patterns that can be taken as seriously as those who have then taken those patterns into eating disorder territory. The harm might be there, but then so is the healing.
Sending so much virtual love to everyone because I know what that feels like, I have been there. I have free 15 minute consults if you’re or anyone you know is confused or a little lost on how to get help or who to get it from. Here is the link to my services page and there is also a FAQs page with some more information on these subjects.
Don’t be afraid to take disordered eating and dieting patterns seriously and seek help if you want to break free from them!
Katy Gaston Nutrition
Katy is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Katy Gaston Nutrition based in San Francisco, CA. Katy is passionate about her work in eating disorders and disordered eating (AKA dieting) and wants to help people heal their relationship with food and body. If you would like to work with Katy in counseling sessions, she is available virtually via her services page below. If you are unable to be a client at this time but would like learn more, click here for a free introduction into intuitive eating workbook!