Eating Disorder Mindsets

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Dysfunctional thinking and negative mindsets can perpetuate eating disorders. While these thinking patterns may seem illogical and unreasonable to healthy individuals, those with eating disorders fully believe the entrapments of their mind. Eating disordered individuals have difficulty coping with and managing strong emotions, such as anger. The anger they experience can be a result of bitterness toward their family, the world and themselves. These feelings are often turned inward, instead of being expressed in healthy, manageable ways. This inward anger often cultivates self-hatred. Anorexics punish themselves for their perceived failures and self-hatred by restricting their food intake. They atone for the ever-increasing pile of mistakes by punishing themselves through not nourishing their own bodies. For bulimics, however, their strategy for atonement is through purging. Their attempt to make up for binging and the resulting sense of shame is manifested through vomiting, exercising, laxatives and an otherwise abusive response to the body. Regardless of the means, self-hatred and punishment are generally unbridled, difficult to escape, and feed depression, anxiety, and secretiveness. Ultimately, these feelings keep eating disordered behaviors alive.