Advice on How to Break Challenging Eating Disorder Habits
Dieting, purging, binge eating, and excessive exercise can be tough habits to break. These harmful behaviors are difficult to overcome because they have developed into strong habits. Changing these habits, like developing any habit, requires time and work. By consistently working toward healthy objectives, you can gradually replace negative behaviors with beneficial ones.
How Eating Habits Form.
The neurobiology of habit development is complicated. A habit is a behavior that takes little to no attention and appears to be automatic. 1. Humans frequently perform things in search of a reward; therefore, we create habits via repeated thoughts and activities aimed at the reward.
At some point, the brain appears to opt to conserve energy—similar to how a computer's hard drive switches to sleep mode—by allowing us to avoid spending extra mental energy on what has already been well-practiced. As a result, a habit has been developed.
Consider how the practice of brushing your teeth twice a day began. When you were a youngster, it required a lot of effort and concentration to scrub your molars, gums, and other teeth. You may have even trained a certain order of activities or sequence. The targeted incentive may have been parental praise, a sense of success, or the avoidance of punishment. Brushing your teeth may have needed a lot more energy and concentration in the beginning than it does today.
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The change from purposeful intention to automatic habit occurs without awareness. The same technique can help explain why you have failed to change your dieting, binge eating, purging, or obsessive exercise habits.
Dietary Habits
Dieting entails limiting calorie intake below what is necessary to maintain body weight. When a person consistently follows specific eating rules and behaviors, particularly if the rules and behaviors are linked to perceived rewards (e.g., self-esteem, weight reduction, health), the repeated choices and actions may become habits.
Once a habit has been established in the brain's structure, incentives can be removed or stopped, yet the habit may remain. 2 Weight reduction from dieting may halt or plateau. People may feel that they are not meeting their goals or that they do not look the way they believe they should.
This can have physical and mental health consequences. These impacts of limitation may include:
- Irritability
- Decreased socialization
- Feeling less energized.
- Physical weakness.
- Malnutrition
- Refeeding Syndrome
- Concentration difficulties
- Mood shifts.
Despite these repercussions, the dietary practice may continue since the brain has established a pattern.
A breakthrough study found that persons with anorexia nervosa, a severe form of chronic eating restriction, appear to make food decisions from a specific section of the brain connected with habits. 3 Why does this matter? Even if the person with anorexia nervosa wishes to eat differently, the brain may be steering them to what they are used to (e.g., low-calorie and restricted meals).
Anorexia nervosa is a multifaceted, severe, and often life-threatening disorder; one reason for its persistence might be because the brain has chosen habit over choice. 4
Binge Eating Habits
Anything that is consistently performed may develop into a habit. While bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder are less well understood than anorexia nervosa, both entail binge eating, which can become automatic or regular.
Some of the apparent first pleasures of binge eating include relief from emotions or "numbing out," dopamine release, and a sensation of fullness or comfort. Over time, recurrent binge eating can become a habit without the person's knowledge. 5 Binge eating can cause psychological problems as well as physical effects due to increasing body size.
There may be additional psychological repercussions. Binge eating can trigger emotions of humiliation, which can lead to isolation. Feelings of shame and disgust can also cause psychological distress.
It's crucial to be mindful of food restriction-induced binges, which can be perplexing. Dieting and limiting can actually cause a binge, which often occurs when a person does not eat enough and at regular intervals.
Because food is a basic requirement for living, continuous dieting (or a dieting habit) can trigger binge cycles that can lead to recurrent food-restricting-then-binge-eating routines and habits.
Purging Habits
If purging behaviors (those that are empty, such as vomiting, enemas, diuretics, and laxatives) are repeated, the decision may become habitual. Furthermore, the perceived rewards that previously motivated the purging activity (e.g., weight reduction, dopamine release, relief from overfullness, etc.) may become less important than the habit's automaticity.
The physiological reactions to a purging habit (those behaviors frequent in bulimia nervosa) can range from minor or unpleasant to more significant, including:
- Swollen parotid glands.
- sore or hoarse throat
- Electrolyte imbalances
- Heart arrhythmia
- Heart attack.
- Dental issues.
- Vital organ damage
- Sudden death.
Overuse of laxatives can also lead to the body becoming dependent on them for bowel movements.
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Exercise Habits:
Exercise may be a compensatory behavior and habit that is first reinforced by perceived rewards (such as the prospect of greater self-esteem, health, weight reduction, strength, and other benefits). Though exercise is sometimes characterized as a benefit, it may be problematic when it becomes inflexible or interferes with daily living.
For example, there may be a lack of scheduling flexibility, which might be perceived as undesirable by the individual or others. This might look like one of the following:
Skipping a crucial social occasion because the person believes they need to exercise
Stopping or paying less attention to other vital parts of life due to an exercise regimen
Feeling compelled to exercise although unwell or disabled.
Overexercise can have varying outcomes, depending on the individual's habits, body type, frequency, and intensity of activity.
What to Do?
If you or someone you care about is fighting to stop bad behaviors like dieting, purging, binge eating, or forced exercise, there are some things you can do to assist.
Adjust your attitude.
Repetitive acts, including those related to eating disorders and disordered eating, can develop into habits that are difficult to overcome. Instead of labeling attempts to effect desired change as "failed" or "never going to change," acknowledge that the habit section of your brain may be quite powerful.
Keep trying.
Benefit from your capacity to create solid habits. Continue exercising new, more desirable future behaviors. Learn more about delays and options to help you modify your behaviors. Distracting yourself or participating in other things is one method to start changing your behaviors.
Remember, it isn't easy.
This is not to say that developing new habits or breaking old ones—particularly those connected to eating disorders or disordered eating—are easy processes. Instead, we're looking at the brain's significant role in hijacking decisions and shifting something to habit, frequently without the person's knowledge or consent.
Be patient.
Forming new habits, such as those related to recovering from eating disorders or disordered eating, does not have a set time limit.
According to one study, it took participants between 18 and 254 days to develop new behaviors into habitual routines. 7
So be patient with yourself and realize that this will take time. It won't happen overnight, but the longer you work toward your goal, the more progress you'll see.
Get Help.
Anyone who is engaging in eating disorder-related activities is highly advised to get professional help for support, skills, safety, and monitoring as they attempt to break these challenging and often deadly habits. People's bodies react to stress in various ways, and seemingly harmless dieting, purging, binge eating, and exercise routines can have major mental and physical health implications.
A Word from Verywell.
Please keep in mind that eating disorders are complicated psychological diseases that frequently result in bodily effects and cannot be reduced to habits. Viewing associated behaviors through the perspective of habit allows us to better appreciate the automaticity of some eating disorder-related behaviors that people struggle to reduce or eliminate.