What’s the difference between eating disorders and disordered eating? When I look at the information about eating disorders, I feel like my issues don’t fall into the exact categories.

Eating disorders are formally recognized mental health conditions within the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). For that to happen, there needed to be enough cases and data collected overtime to formulate a consistent understanding of these experiences and what they look like in terms of frequency, intensity, and severity of symptoms.

In contrast, disordered eating describes a broad range of behaviors that don't fully fit all the angles of the DSM disorders. This could be due to a number of reasons such as low prevalence (not enough people report experiencing it) or lack of consistent data (not enough information being documented). Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Disorders in the DSM are usually highly distressing conditions that are life disrupting, if not life threatening, and require medical intervention. Including the various forms of disordered eating into it can over pathologize challenges that may be more typical than not. For example, extreme dieting, obsessive calorie counting, food morals (eg., hot dogs are bad, vegetables are good), and emotional eating are more socially coded practices that don't lead to organ failure or extreme malnutrition like Anorexia Nervosa or Binge-Eating Disorder. In any case, that doesn't mean your experiences don't matter or aren't important.

Metric validation or formal diagnosis shouldn't prevent us from addressing the challenges in our life. So to recap: eating disorders are well researched, discrete conditions with high severity that significantly impact our lives. Disordered eating involves more socially normalized eating habits that may be distressing while not life threatening.

Josiah Teng