Eating Disorder Awareness Month: Understanding Disordered Eating and Eating Disorders

Eating Disorder Awareness Month is a time to increase understanding, reduce stigma, and encourage women to seek support when their relationship with food or their body begins to feel overwhelming.

One distinction often gets blurred, and it’s an important one: disordered eating and eating disorders are not the same thing.

An eating disorder is a diagnosable mental health condition — such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, or ARFID. These are serious medical illnesses that affect thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and physical health. They require professional treatment and medical oversight.

Disordered eating, on the other hand, refers to unhealthy food behaviors and thought patterns that may not meet clinical diagnostic criteria but are still harmful. Chronic dieting. Food guilt. Obsessive calorie tracking. Rigid food rules. Using restriction to cope with stress.

Not everyone with disordered eating develops an eating disorder. But when patterns become increasingly rigid, compulsive, or emotionally driven, the risk rises.

In a culture shaped by #SkinnyTok, rising conversations around GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, and trends toward restrictive eating, it can feel hard to simply exist in your own skin. Health advice is everywhere. You may want to build strength or improve habits, but when does “healthy” quietly turn harmful?

That is the conversation we need to have during Eating Disorder Awareness Month.  

Signs of an Eating Disorder in Women

Eating disorders are more than occasional dieting or body dissatisfaction. They are serious mental health conditions that affect emotional and physical well-being.

Emotional and behavioral signs may include:

• Intense fear of weight gain
• Distorted body image
• Obsessive thoughts about calories or body shape
• Avoiding meals or eating in secret
• Binge-eating episodes followed by guilt or compensatory behaviors
• Purging behaviors
• Withdrawal from social situations involving food
• Physical signs may include:
• Noticeable weight loss or fluctuation
• Irregular or missed menstrual cycles
• Dizziness or chronic fatigue
• Digestive issues
• Changes in heart rate

With a clinical eating disorder, behaviors often feel overwhelming and difficult to control. They may interfere with work, relationships, or daily life.

If these signs feel familiar, a professional evaluation is important. Eating disorders are medical conditions—not phases, not vanity, and not a lack of discipline. Early intervention improves recovery outcomes.

Signs of Disordered Eating in Women

Disordered eating often develops gradually. Many women don’t wake up with a diagnosed eating disorder. It often begins subtly: cutting carbs, skipping meals, tracking every bite.

Common signs of disordered eating include:

• Chronic dieting
• Frequent restriction
• Obsessive calorie or macro tracking
• Labeling foods as strictly “good” or “bad”
• Exercising primarily to “earn” food
• Anxiety around social eating
• Using food control to manage stress

Disordered eating can look disciplined. It may even receive compliments.

But over time, increased restriction, fear of weight gain, and emotional distress around food can escalate into behaviors that meet the criteria for an eating disorder. Early awareness matters.

It’s also important to recognize the cultural environment shaping these patterns. The rise of GLP-1 medications, highly visible celebrity weight changes, and constant social media comparison have intensified body image pressure. When thinness is repeatedly framed as the goal, restrictive habits can feel normalized, even necessary.

Disordered eating doesn’t develop in isolation. It often grows in a culture that equates smaller bodies with success and worth.

The Rise of GLP-1 Medications and Body Image Pressure

GLP-1 medications like Ozempic were developed to treat type 2 diabetes and are still widely prescribed for diabetes, insulin resistance, and metabolic conditions. For many women, these medications are medically appropriate and life-improving. They can improve blood sugar levels, cholesterol, joint pain, and overall metabolic health.

And that context matters.

For example, Serena Williams has shared that she uses a GLP-1 medication to manage her weight following pregnancy. She has described wanting to regain her energy and feel “normal” again, noting improvements in joint comfort and blood markers.

But, when media clips and advertisements highlighting Serena’s usage focus primarily on dramatic weight loss, without explaining medical context, it can send a simplified message: even elite athletes need weight-loss drugs to meet expectations.

It shifts the focus from health to appearance. And when that happens, it can quietly change how we see ourselves. For women already navigating comparison or food anxiety, that spotlight can heighten pressure in ways that are hard to name, but very real.

Celebrities Who Have Spoken About Eating Struggles

Disordered eating and eating disorders don’t affect just one type of woman. In fact, many celebrities have opened up about their struggles with disordered eating.

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga opened up about her struggle with bulimia and how it began to affect one of her greatest gifts, her voice.

“I used to throw up all the time in high school. So I’m not that confident. I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina, but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night… It made my voice bad, so I had to stop.”

Shawn Johnson East

In 2015, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson East shared how her journey as an athlete led her into disordered eating.

“I was always the very strong, powerful, muscly, bulky gymnast and I felt like people always wanted me to be thinner and lighter and leaner. And as a 12-year-old, the only way I really understood how to achieve that was to eat less and restrict myself. I remember kind of obsessing over it,” she told People. “I went as far as literally not eating any carbs. I wouldn’t allow myself to eat a single noodle of soup. It got to the point where my body was shutting down.”

Her story is a reminder that even Olympic athletes feel the pressure to be smaller.

Taylor Swift

More recently, Taylor Swift opened up in her documentary about how restrictive eating habits affected her performance and distorted how she saw herself.

“I thought I was just supposed to feel like I was gonna pass out at the end of a show or in the middle of it. Now I realize, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel it, which is a really good revelation because I’m a lot happier with who I am. I don’t care as much if somebody points out that I have gained weight,” she said. “The fact that I’m a size 6 instead of a size 00, that wasn’t how my body was supposed to be. I just didn’t really understand that at the time.”

Her words highlight something powerful. Fueling your body is not a weakness. It is a strength.

Hillary Duff

Many millennials grew up watching Hilary Duff, but fewer know that she struggled deeply with disordered eating as a teenager. At 17, she weighed just 98 pounds.

“I was totally obsessed with everything I put in my mouth. I was way too skinny,” she revealed. “Not cute. And my body wasn’t that healthy—my hands would cramp up a lot because I wasn’t getting the nutrition I needed,” she told Health. “That constant pressure of wanting something different than I had? I regret that.”

When “Healthy” Becomes Harmful

Clean eating. Eliminating entire food groups. Strict rules.

From the outside, these behaviors can look responsible. But health is not defined by rigidity.

When eating patterns are driven by fear, shame, or control rather than nourishment and balance, they can slowly harm mental and physical health.

The shift from disordered eating to an eating disorder often begins subtly:

• Escalating restriction
• Heightened fear of weight gain
• Increasing emotional distress tied to food
• So, what can you do to make sure your diet stays within a healthy range?
• How to Build a Healthy Relationship With Food

A healthy relationship with food is flexible, balanced, and rooted in respect for your body. Healthy eating should never feel like punishment.

It should mean fueling your body so you can do what you do best. Whether that is athletics, the arts, writing, reading, working, parenting, or spending time with your friends, your life deserves to be fueled by food, not controlled by it.

That may include:

• Allowing a variety of foods
• Eating consistently
• Listening to hunger cues
• Challenging all-or-nothing thinking
• Addressing stress without punishing your body

A Whole-Person Approach

Eating Disorder Awareness Month is about seeing the full picture—from early disordered eating patterns to diagnosed eating disorders—and understanding how deeply these struggles can affect a woman’s health. Disordered eating can disrupt hormones, menstrual cycles, fertility, heart health, and emotional well-being. Eating disorders can impact nearly every system in the body.

At For Every Woman, we believe care should look at your whole life—emotional health, physical health, social support, and overall wellness. Awareness isn’t about labeling yourself. It’s about noticing patterns with honesty and taking action when necessary.

If food-related behaviors feel compulsive, distressing, or are affecting your physical health, it’s important to seek professional support. Even if your symptoms don’t meet diagnostic criteria, a licensed healthcare or mental health provider can help you sort through what’s happening and prevent patterns from escalating.

You deserve care that strengthens you—not standards that shrink you.

Read next: Summer Body Positivity: How to Feel Confident, Healthy, and Happy This Season.