Unpacking the Why: Exploring How Eating Disorders Develop

This Body Image and Eating Disorder Awareness Week, we’re spreading awareness around what causes eating disorders, amplifying voices of lived experience, and advocating for increased support. 

Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses, and can develop due to a range of influences, such as trauma, sensory sensitivities, personality traits, genetics, family history, societal pressures, and co-occurring conditions like ADHD, OCD and endometriosis. 

But despite this, there remains a misconception in society that eating disorders are always caused by body image concerns.  

To break this down and spread awareness about the reality of eating disorders and how they develop, we asked lived experience advocates about the factors that contributed to the development of their eating disorder.  

Their experiences illustrate that there is never one cause of an eating disorder – but by understanding the diverse risk factors that contribute to the development of eating disorders, we can build empathy, better identify at risk groups, provide effective early intervention and improve treatment and support.   

Co-Occurring Conditions 

For many people with lived experience, co-occurring conditions such as ADHD, OCD, coeliac disease, diabetes, and endometriosis can cause disordered eating behaviours, and/or body image concerns. 

Up to 97% of people diagnosed with an eating disorder also receive a diagnosis for at least one other psychiatric disorder, such as depression or anxiety.¹ 

“I developed an eating disorder due to multiple factors, although I believe a big part of it was to do with low self-esteem and negative self-talk. I’d been living with undiagnosed ADHD and … I’d grown up being told that thin was ‘good’ and anything else was ‘bad’. I’m still discovering why anorexia was part of my journey. I may never have a neat answer, but through recovery I’ve been able to come out stronger and with a clearer sense of who I am, and what I want out of life.” - Johanna 

“I developed an eating disorder due to experiencing a period of depression when I finished school, because my chosen path didn’t work out as I had hoped. As the good girl of the family, it was difficult for me to express negative emotions, so when I couldn’t find the words to explain how out of control my life suddenly felt, my body did the talking.” – Claire 

“I developed an eating disorder due to OCD. Lots of people think OCD is just someone washing their hands over and over again, or checking the light switch, on and off, on and off. But for me it was about order and symmetry, and making sure all the numbers, in terms of calories, and weight, and measurements, were all ‘just right’. I didn’t realise it could lead to an eating disorder.” - Kelli 

Trauma 

Research indicates that people with lived experience of trauma may turn to disordered eating as a coping mechanism, and a way to feel ‘in control’, with nearly 70% of women diagnosed with an eating disorder having been exposed to a traumatic event.² 

“I developed an eating disorder after medical trauma; my body had let me down. It had become a site of pain, and the systems around me did too. I wasn’t trying to disappear; I was trying to survive in a body that felt like a battleground. I didn’t know how to love a body that had failed me. Depriving it of nutrition felt like both a protest and survival.” – Juliette 

 “After I was sexually assaulted, I couldn’t eat anything, and I was really worried, so I Googled something along the lines of ‘tips for when you’re not eating’ and I was hoping for support services, or some resources. But instead, the top search result was a quite toxic forum. I clicked on it, went on this absolute spiral and that led to a journey of bulimia over seven years.” – Skye

Sensory Sensitivities 

For some people, sensory sensitivities can play a role in the development of an eating disorder or disordered eating, as certain textures, smells or tastes of specific foods can be overwhelming or distressing.  

Neurodivergent people are more likely to experience feeding and eating difficulties, including around sensory sensitivities, when compared to neurotypical people, with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) estimated to affect 21% of autistic individuals.³ 

“My eating disorder developed as a result of a complex mix of factors, including sensory sensitivities, intergenerational food insecurity, trauma, co-occurring mental illness and neurodivergence, as well as the pressure of Eurocentric beauty ideals, fatphobia, diet culture, and limited access to appropriate support.”  – Kacey 

Sport & Dance 

Activities like competitive sport and dance, particularly those that are appearance-focused, often involve strict control over diet and exercise, and with regular monitoring and assessment of participants’ bodies, disordered eating behaviours are often normalised or hiding in plain sight. 

Recent research from the ASPIRE project showed that over 20% of high-performance athletes reported symptoms consistent with the most severe end of the disordered eating spectrum, with an additional 58% reporting moderate to high symptoms of disordered eating.⁴ 

“My lived experience developed from my time as a competitive athlete, which is when I started focusing on the foods that I was eating and trying to be ‘healthier’. This snowballed, and I continued to cut out more and more foods and started becoming really focused on my body and the way that it looked … paired with having so much stress and anxiety within school, my eating disorder was also fueled by feeling like I had such little control over anything else in my life.” - Tayla 

 “I grew up playing competitive soccer, and at first, it was all about performance. But over time, I started comparing my body to my teammates … [and] coaches praised discipline, pushing through pain, even cutting back on food. I didn’t realise it then, but I was caught in disordered eating – and it took a serious toll on my body and mind.” – Dom 

“I developed an eating disorder due to multiple things – a concern around weight gain during puberty, a pressure around body size from participating in dance as my main hobby, and other psychological factors, such as a perfectionistic personality, autistic traits, and a desire for control.” - Sophie  

Family History 

Genetics and family history of an eating disorder can increase a person’s risk of developing an eating disorder, with a person being 11 times more likely to develop anorexia if they have a family relative with the disorder, when compared to someone with no family history.⁵ 

“I think what really contributed to my eating disorder was the incredible amount of imagery that I experienced from society and the media … [such as] the constant bombardment of women being objectified and being shrunk down to these tiny sizes. [There was also] the fear that I would be deemed unlovable if I had any amount of weight on me … was the message that was conveyed to me from my father growing up. My dad speaks openly into the fact that he had an in disorder and he was so full of fear, and he saw so many similarities in me that that reminded him of himself.” - Tracy 

Coping Mechanism & Control 

Disordered eating behaviours may emerge when life is feeling particularly chaotic, overwhelming, or out of our control. Controlling one’s food intake can become a coping mechanism, and a way to feel like we’re regaining control over our lives. For many people, it’s not about the food itself, but regaining a sense of agency and stability. 

“I developed an eating disorder because as a teenager, a lot of things just felt very out of my control, and food and exercise felt like a way to regain control. On top of that, I didn’t know anybody who looked like me who had struggled with an eating disorder, so I didn’t even think that it was possible for me to have one.” – Varsha 

“I developed an eating disorder due to the bullying that I experienced at school and the family environment I was living in growing up. I could not control anything that was actually happening in my life, either my family life or my school life, and the only thing I could control was what I could eat, and what I could do to my body.” – AJ  

“I developed an eating disorder due to a range of reasons including being a competitive athlete from primary school age, [and] the divorce of my parents that broke down my entire family unit, with a lack of stability [that] made me feel like my world was so far from within my control” – Hannah

Societal Pressures & Harmful Appearance Ideals 

Society is constantly telling us how our bodies ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ look, with this harmful appearance ideal messaging bombarding us from every angle – on social media, in advertisements, and even in conversations with those around us. These pervasive ideas around equating thinness with worthiness and acceptance have a significant impact on people’s wellbeing and body image. 

 “I didn’t develop an eating disorder because I wanted to be thin. I developed an eating disorder because I wanted to feel I belonged somewhere in the world and that there was something I could succeed at regardless of the chaos occurring around me. I never wanted to look like a model; I wanted to be treated like a human being who was smart and capable and funny and passionate” – Rachael

“I believe my eating disorder developed from a lack of emotional regulation and inability to feel safe to share my emotions and feelings, not to mention the pressure from society and conditioning around being thin and believing that thinness meant that I would be accepted in this world.” - Courtney 

“My eating disorder developed purely from my dad wanting me to meet the beauty standards of society … he would monitor what I ate and would make me exercise [excessively]. Around the same time was when MTV, Facebook, and all of that was huge, so of course I didn’t eat, because I wanted to look like the hot girls running around the rappers on the music videos, and look like all the celebrities that were posting photos of themselves.”  – Suzie 

Share Your Experience

We are incredibly grateful to all the lived experience advocates and Butterfly Collective community who have shared their own journeys and experiences with us this Body Image & Eating Disorder Awareness Week, as we continue to advocate for increased awareness, education and support. 

Want to share your own lived experience? Become a member of our free, lived experience network, the Butterfly Collective, and share about your own journey with an eating disorder, disordered eating, and/or body image concerns: https://butterfly.org.au/collective/register/ 

Get Support 

No matter how the eating disorder developed, recovery is possible, and Butterfly is here to help. 

• For confidential and free counselling, call the Butterfly National Helpline on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673) or chat online or email, 7 days a week, 8am-midnight (AEDT).  

• Find an eating disorder professional – search Butterfly’s National Referral Database to find eating disorder practitioners closest to you. 
• For free and confidential support for domestic, family or sexual violence, call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or visit https://1800respect.org.au/ 

Learn More

To learn more about Body Image & Eating Disorder Awareness Week, visit here: Body Image and Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2025 – Butterfly Foundation 

References 

¹ National Eating Disorder Collaboration, n.d.  https://nedc.com.au/eating-disorders/types/co-occurring-conditions. 

² Hepp, U., Spindler, A., Schnyder, U., Kraemer, B., & Milos, G. (2007). Post-traumatic stress disorder in women with eating disorders.  Eating Weight Disorders, 12(1), 24-27. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03327778 

³ Cobbaert, L. & Rose, A. (2023). Eating Disorders and Neurodivergence: A Stepped Care Approach. https://nedc.com.au/assets/NEDC-Publications/Eating-Disorders-and-Neurodivergence-A-Stepped-Care-Approach.pdf?2025071105 

⁴ Fatt, S. (2025). Losing Your Balance: Understanding Disordered Eating and Body Image in High-Performance Athletes. https://butterfly.org.au/disordered-eating-and-high-performance-athletes/ 

⁵ Barakat, S., McLean, S.A., Bryant, E. et al. Risk factors for eating disorders: findings from a rapid review.  (2023). Journal of Eating Disorders, 11(8). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-022-00717-4