When someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder, it can feel like you’re walking on eggshells. You may worry that saying the wrong thing could make things worse—or feel helpless trying to offer comfort when nothing seems to get through.

The truth is, how you communicate matters—a lot. While you can’t "fix" the eating disorder with words alone, effective communication can help reduce shame, increase trust, and make recovery feel safer.

This guide offers basic communication skills for families navigating the challenges of eating disorders—centered on empathy, boundaries, and connection.

Understanding the Complex Relationship Between Culture, Identity, and Body Perception

Body image — the thoughts, beliefs, and feelings we hold about our physical appearance — doesn’t develop in a vacuum. While personal experiences, media exposure, and peer influences all play significant roles, cultural traditions and norms are among the most powerful, yet often overlooked, forces shaping how we perceive our bodies.

Across the world, ideas about beauty, health, body size, gender expression, and aging are deeply embedded in cultural and familial traditions. These ideas can either protect individuals from body dissatisfaction — or contribute to shame, pressure, and disordered eating.

This post explores the nuanced ways cultural traditions influence body image across diverse populations, and how understanding these dynamics is essential for body-positive work and inclusive mental health care.

Stories That Celebrate All Bodies, Genders, Abilities, and Identities

Children begin to form ideas about their bodies and self-worth as early as preschool. Books are powerful tools to challenge stereotypes, spark important conversations, and reflect back the beauty of diversity. The following list includes books for toddlers to tweens that center body respect, inclusion, and inner strength — not just outer appearance.

From magazine covers to TikTok trends, children today are bombarded with messages about what their bodies should look like. Whether it's the “perfect” body, flawless skin, or certain facial features, these unrealistic beauty standards have become so normalized that many kids absorb them without even realizing it.

From magazine covers to social media filters, image editing has become so normalized that many adults barely notice it anymore. But for children and preteens still developing a sense of self, Photoshopped images can profoundly distort how they view their own bodies—and their worth.

While the use of Photoshop in advertising and entertainment is nothing new, the omnipresence of edited images on social media has created an environment where perfection seems not only possible but expected. In this post, we explore how digitally altered images influence children’s body image, the psychological mechanisms behind these effects, and what parents, educators, and caregivers can do to foster media literacy and resilience.

Low self-esteem is both a contributor to and a consequence of eating disorders. Many people struggling with disordered eating hold the belief that their worth is tied to how they look, how little they eat, or how in control they feel. Recovery challenges those rules—and when those external markers are taken away, it can feel like there’s nothing left to hold on to.

So how do you rebuild a sense of self that isn't defined by weight, perfection, or performance?

In this post, we’ll explore the roots of low self-esteem in eating disorders and offer practical, evidence-based tools to help you grow a more solid, compassionate sense of self.

Exploring Identity, Acculturation, and Appearance Pressures in a Marginalized Population

Body dissatisfaction is a widespread issue in many societies, but for Asian American women, it often exists at a unique and painful intersection of cultural values, racial stereotypes, and Western beauty ideals. Despite being underrepresented in eating disorder research and treatment conversations, Asian American women are not exempt from the impact of disordered eating, appearance anxiety, or body image struggles. In fact, these experiences may be underreported, misunderstood, and deeply internalized.

For many individuals, especially in long-standing or high-achieving cases, the eating disorder is not simply a behavior — it becomes a source of pride, identity, and self-worth. Restriction becomes discipline. Control becomes superiority. Thinness becomes accomplishment. In this way, ego investment in the disorder can become a major barrier to recovery — not because the person isn’t suffering, but because a part of them believes they are succeeding

While most people are familiar with eating disorders like anorexia nervosa or bulimia, fewer are aware of Rumination Disorder — a rare but serious feeding and eating disorder that often goes undiagnosed or misunderstood. Individuals with rumination disorder experience repeated regurgitation of food, which may be re-chewed, re-swallowed, or spit out — and it’s not due to a medical condition or reflux.

Whether you're a caregiver, clinician, or someone seeking answers for yourself or a loved one, understanding the symptoms, causes, and treatment of rumination disorder is essential to providing compassionate care and effective intervention.

Exploring the Overlap in Thoughts, Behaviors, and Treatment Implications

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is often misunderstood as a disorder centered around food and weight — but for many individuals, it is deeply rooted in obsessional thinking, compulsive rituals, and a drive for perfection and control. These traits significantly overlap with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a condition marked by intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors intended to reduce anxiety.

When a child is recovering from an eating disorder, healing doesn’t stop at the clinic or dinner table — it follows them into the classroom, the lunchroom, and the hallways of their school. But schools are not always equipped to recognize or respond to eating disorders, and parents often find themselves in the role of advocate, coordinator, and protector all at once.

Eating disorders impact people of all gender identities and sexual orientations. However, LGBTQ+ individuals experience eating disorders at higher rates than their cisgender, heterosexual peers, often due to unique stressors such as discrimination, trauma, identity-related distress, and lack of affirming care.

Eating disorders are often associated with teens and young adults, but they can — and do — affect children much younger. In recent years, clinicians and researchers have noted a rise in pre-adolescent eating disorders, sometimes beginning as early as age 8 or 9. These cases often present unique challenges that require developmentally tailored approaches, family-centered support, and a nuanced understanding of what recovery looks like in younger children.