Eating Behaviors Exist on a Continuum
At Art of Awareness, we view eating behaviors as existing on a continuum of dynamic expressions of lived experience. They are shaped not only by physiology, but also by culture, relationships, trauma history, and systemic messages about the body. They exist on a continuum, ranging from balanced and flexible to deeply entrenched patterns that require specialized clinical care.
This blog post draws from a clinical training held on July 9, 2025, facilitated by Ida O’Donnell, LCSW, Kiley Fine, LCPC-C, and Elizabeth Davis, LCPC-C. Together, these clinicians bring a depth of knowledge and passion for supporting individuals affected by eating disorders and disordered eating. Their work reflects our continued commitment to trauma-informed care, clinical integrity, and community education.
Eating Behaviors Exist on a Continuum
Balanced eating reflects an attuned relationship to hunger and fullness cues, food variety, and pleasure without guilt. It supports nourishment and flexibility, and it does not rely on perfection or rigidity.
Disordered eating includes patterns such as chronic dieting, preoccupation with food or weight, and food rules that disrupt daily life. These behaviors may be harmful even when socially accepted or culturally encouraged.
Clinical eating disorders, such as Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, ARFID, OSFED, and others, are psychiatric conditions with significant physical, emotional, and social consequences. These conditions require specialized, multidisciplinary treatment. Though symptoms may differ across diagnoses, many individuals share common experiences of distress, shame, secrecy, and isolation.
The Scope of the Problem in Eating Behaviors
Research shows that eating disorders are both widespread and underrecognized. The lifetime prevalence is estimated at 8.6 percent for females and 4.07 percent for males. Rates have more than doubled in recent decades, and over 22 percent of adolescents today show signs of disordered eating.
Despite these numbers, fewer than 6 percent of people with eating disorders fall into the underweight category. This fact challenges long-held stereotypes about what eating disorders look like and who is affected by them. Many people suffer silently because they do not meet the narrow visual or behavioral criteria often portrayed in media and healthcare settings.
One person dies every 52 minutes in the United States due to complications related to an eating disorder. It is the second most fatal mental health condition after opioid use disorder. Still, many at-risk groups – including LGBTQIA+ youth, athletes, men, and individuals in larger bodies – remain underdiagnosed and underserved.
Eating Disorders Are Complex, Not Superficial
Misunderstandings about eating disorders continue to shape stigma and delay care. These are not choices or lifestyle preferences. They are complex conditions that often emerge in response to trauma, relational injury, or emotional overwhelm. For some, food becomes a way to manage control or numbness. For others, it is linked to belonging, punishment, or coping with unmet needs.
Recovery does not occur in a straight line. It is often a layered, nonlinear process that includes setbacks, grief, integration, and growth. Behaviors that once served as survival strategies must be understood with compassion, not condemnation.
Full recovery is possible with appropriate support. Healing involves reconnecting with the body, reclaiming safety, and restoring relationship to self and others.
Risk Factors: Understanding the Terrain
A wide range of factors may contribute to the development and persistence of an eating disorder.
On a biological level, genetic predisposition and neurochemical differences can influence hunger, anxiety, and reward systems. Disrupted interoception, or difficulty sensing internal states, may also play a role.
Psychologically, many individuals experience perfectionism, shame, or difficulty accessing or expressing emotion. For some, eating behaviors serve as a way to manage distress or dissociation.
Interpersonal dynamics matter too. Experiences such as attachment trauma, neglect, family conflict, bullying, or major identity shifts can shape one’s relationship with food and body.
Culturally, messages about worth and appearance are reinforced through fatphobia, diet culture, and medical systems that prioritize thinness over well-being. Marginalization due to race, gender, sexuality, ability, or body size compounds these risks.
What the Cycle Can Look Like
Eating disorders often evolve slowly and invisibly. Because food is essential and constant, it can easily become entangled with control, reward, or punishment. Harmful behaviors may be masked as discipline, health, or success, especially in a culture that glorifies restriction and activity while devaluing rest and softness.
A person may begin restricting or bingeing as a response to unacknowledged emotional pain, grief, or overwhelm. Over time, this behavior can become a deeply rooted system that feels impossible to exit. The cycle is not simply about food. It is about identity, safety, and agency.
Recovery requires more than eliminating symptoms. It involves shifting the internal and external environment, restoring safety in the body, the therapeutic relationship, the home, and the wider culture.
Recovery Is Possible
While eating disorders can be serious and long-lasting, there is hope. Studies show that between 50 and 60 percent of individuals fully recover. Another 20 to 30 percent experience significant improvement. For those living with a chronic course, long-term support can still offer relief, stability, and increased quality of life.
Outcomes improve when care is trauma-informed, early, consistent, and integrated. Therapy, medical support, nutrition guidance, community, and relationship repair are all essential parts of the process.
The Role of Families and Communities
Healing does not happen in isolation. Families, caregivers, and communities can be essential allies in recovery when they approach with patience, humility, and attunement.
Rather than focusing on weight or appearance, supportive environments center nourishment, safety, and relationship. Comments about body size, even if meant as compliments, are discouraged. Meals can become opportunities for shared connection rather than conflict or control.
Consistency, curiosity, and emotional safety often matter more than compliance or outward progress. Loved ones are encouraged to seek their own support in processing grief, establishing boundaries, and understanding the functions that eating behaviors may have served.
Prevention and Resilience
While not all eating disorders can be prevented, we can foster conditions that build resilience. Children and adults alike benefit from messages that affirm body diversity and focus on health as something holistic, not measured by weight alone.
Modeling self-respect, enjoying food without shame, encouraging movement for joy rather than correction, and creating space for rest all play a role. So does practicing critical thinking about media and naming the cultural scripts that link worth to appearance.
Prevention also looks like talking openly, listening more, and building environments where people feel seen beyond their bodies.
Closing Reflections – Eating Disorders Exist on a Continuum
“Think of your body as the vehicle to your dreams.
Honor it. Respect it. Fuel it.”
This is not a call to perfection. It is an invitation to relationship.
The body is not the problem to be solved.
It is the place where we nourish, grieve, imagine, love, and begin again.
For those in recovery, for those who care, and for those still uncertain:
You are not broken. You adapted.
With support, you can return to yourself.
To Learn More
To begin your journey toward healing, or to support someone you care about, click Get Started With Therapy Today: https://form.jotform.com/242685263528060
We are honored to walk beside you.