By Milissa Aronson | Trauma

Posted: June 20, 2025

Trauma and Disordered Eating

When most people think of eating disorders, they picture food restriction, binge eating, or obsessing overweight and appearance. But beneath those visible behaviors often lies something deeper: unresolved trauma. Trauma can have a profound impact on an individual’s relationship with food, their body, and their view of themselves, and disordered eating might develop a way to cope with past trauma. For many individuals who have experienced trauma, disordered eating is less about food and more about control, safety, and survival in the aftermath of painful experiences. Gaining an understanding of the link between trauma and disordered eating can help you identify patterns in your own life and support healing.

What is Trauma?

Trauma refers to any event that causes extreme emotional or psychological distress. These experiences can range from childhood abuse or neglect, to accidents, loss of a loved one, or emotional neglect. Trauma affects the nervous system and brain, rewiring the way that we perceive safety, respond to stress, and relate to our bodies, and leaves emotional scars, long after the traumatic event has passed. While trauma affects everyone differently, it can shape how you handle stress, process emotions and view yourself. 

How Trauma Leads to Disordered Eating

Disordered eating includes a variety of behaviors, such as restrictive eating, binge eating, or purging. It can serve as a way to cope with unaddressed trauma; it is not just about food, but about using food to manage overwhelming emotions that stem from trauma. Here are a few key psychological and physiological pathways that link trauma to disordered eating:

1. The Body as a Battlefield

For trauma survivors, especially those who have experienced physical or sexual abuse, the body can feel unsafe or even like an enemy. Disordered eating, in these cases, may be a way to dissociate from the body, suppress sexuality, or disappear through weight loss.

2. Sense of Control

Trauma often involves feeling powerless and a common response to feeling powerless is to seek out areas where you feel a sense of control. Restrictive eating can provide a false sense of control and a sense of agency over something when everything else feels out of control.

3. Establishing a Sense of Safety

When we feel uncomfortable or dysregulated, our natural inclination is to find a way to comfort ourselves. Food often serves as a comfort, particularly when it was used it has been viewed or used that way at some point in the past.

4. Emotional Regulation and Coping with Shame and Self-Blame

Food can become a tool for emotional regulation. Trauma survivors may binge to soothe anxiety, purge to release internal chaos, or restrict to dull overwhelming emotions. Trauma can also lead to a negative self-view, with trauma survivors believing that they are “bad” not “undeserving” in some way. When this occurs, disordered eating can be a trauma survivor’s way of fixing or punishing themselves for these beliefs.

5. Disconnection from Interoception

Trauma disrupts a person’s ability to sense internal cues like hunger, fullness, or even emotional states. This disconnect contributes to chaotic eating patterns and further distances a trauma survivor from their body’s needs.

Addressing Disordered Eating Rooted in Trauma

Historically, eating disorders were treated through a narrow lens, such as meal plans, weight restoration, and CBT. However, when disordered eating develops as a survival strategy, treating the behaviors in a vacuum can feel dismissive or retraumatizing for trauma survivors. Understanding the connection between trauma and disordered eating can assist in healing. Recovering from an eating disorder rooted in trauma isn’t about “fixing” food behavior, it’s about helping the person feel safe in their body, process unhealed wounds, and build new ways of coping and truly recognizing that the trauma has passed. This process takes a time, support, and an established sense of safety and it may involve ups and downs. But with compassionate, trauma-informed care, people can learn to trust themselves again—body, mind, and spirit.

Are you struggling with the lasting effects of trauma? Reach out for help today!