There are a lot of assumptions about shame and eating disorders. It is usually assumed that sufferers feel shame about not being thin enough or shame about eating. Whilst this is often the case, eating disorders are varied and complex, and the shame can take on different forms.
I have created this piece based on conversations with a female in recovery from an eating disorder she suffered in her teens. At the age of 13 and when prepubescent, she developed an eating disorder that meant she did not put on weight for several years, delaying puberty. At the age of 15 she had a bone-age of 12. She began to recover aged 17, and now lives a happy life with children. She challenges the assumptions surrounding eating disorders and shame.
People assume you want to be thin, that you are ashamed of your body when you put on weight.
I was ashamed of my body alright, but because I was too thin, not too fat. At 13 I began cutting out foods, then limiting the foods I did eat. It made me feel in control, but I was ashamed of my body at the same time. At 13 I hadn’t hit puberty, I was small and a dancer. But then, because I wasn’t fuelling my body, puberty didn’t come. I ended up 16 looking like a small 13 year-old, and I hated it. This was not an eating disorder where I was comparing myself to skinny celebrities and wanting to be thin. This was an eating disorder where I wanted to control my eating because it made me feel good, but I wanted to look like the other girls my age. I remember the shame of being pushed to do the swimming gala in Year 10 and knowing that people were looking at me in shock. If you could have given me a pill to put on weight I would have taken it, I just couldn’t eat what I needed to. I felt like such a freak.
People assume you want attention.
This has been said to me and it made me feel awful. But what people don’t understand is that attention is the last thing you need. You want people to stop looking, to stop interfering and to stop asking you what you ate today. You want to be left alone to eat what you want at the times you want, avoiding stress. It’s about control and comfort, not looking thin. Attention brings additional shame so it’s easier to be alone. We weren’t literate about our mental health in those days. So when counselling was mentioned, I was ashamed, and I refused, I didn’t want a spotlight on me.
People assume you don’t eat.
When I was suffering, I ate every day but specific foods at specific times. Having to go to a new place, try new food, eat at a non-regulation time, these would throw me. I still feel it to an extent. People still think I don’t eat, and that bothers me. It doesn’t help that I’m still naturally thin. I want people to think I am ‘normal’. When I am in my usual routine I probably eat more than most. Three meals a day, high-calorie, safe, planned foods. It’s when I go out that I find it hard, so avoid food, and that’s what people see. I’m ashamed that people think I don’t eat. I do eat, I want to say, just maybe not around you, as much as I’d like to.
The shame doesn’t go really go away.
I have children, and only needed minimal, non-invasive fertility treatment so I’m lucky. A lot of the time I forget that I even had a disorder, especially when I’m in my own routine. Then I remember: My mum being ill from all the worry; The extra stress on family holidays; The times I manipulated my way out of uncomfortable food situations. Just because you have a mental illness doesn’t mean you aren’t acting selfishly. I’m so much better, but I don’t always eat the same dinner as my family now. I might sit, chat then eat later, the food I want to at the time I want to. Then one of my kids will ask me to try something from their plate, or their cooking. If I haven’t planned for it, I might make an excuse, and I am ashamed of that. It reminds me that I might look OK on the outside now but it’s always lurking on the inside.
Eating disorders are full of shame, but just like eating disorders are not homogenous, neither is the shame that goes with it.
Dr Sally Latham, The Open University
12th May 2025
