By: Hannah Norling
Refusal to Eat With Others/Making Excuses for Not Eating
One of the more noticeable symptoms of a restrictive eating disorder can be recognizing that a person isn’t eating as much as they should during normal meal times or making up excuses for why they can’t finish their meal. However, it’s not always that noticeable. When you’re beginning to suspect that a friend or loved one might have a restrictive eating disorder, notice how they engage with meal times and snacking.
“Body Checking”
Body Checking is “when a person seeks information about their shape, weight, or appearance”. Some of this is normal behavior and most people look at themselves and what they look like from time to time. Body Checking becomes a disordered behavior that might point to signs of a larger problem with an eating disorder when you begin to notice a person doing it much more frequently and obsessively.
Feeling Nervous About Not Exercising
Extreme obsession with whether they’ve gotten to the gym is another covert way that an eating disorder might be at play. If there’s general emotional distress around missing one day of working out — the compensatory behavior of an eating disorder, to control weight or shape by over-exercising might be another way this person is engaging in disordered behavior.
Wearing ClothingThat is Too Big/Doesn’t Fit
Sometimes people who are actively losing weight might try and hide this by hiding the true amount of how much weight they’ve been losing. Moreover, there’s also the element that people with an eating disorder may not really understand what their body size is. Additionally pointing to an eating disorder.
Not Being Hungry During the Day
Do you often notice that your friend is not eating during the day but notices their hunger cues at night? Restriction isn’t just something for a restrictive disorder. Those with Binge Eating Disorder often engages in restriction during the day which leads to binging at night.
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