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Eating disorder or body dysmorphia?

jessie06 August 17th, 2021

I’ve always had body image issues. I believe in elementary school I remember looking in the mirror and telling my mom “look, my belly sticks out”, which it didn’t. Fast forward to now. I am 25 years old and find myself constantly stepping on a scale and looking at myself in the mirror from all angles. I don’t restrict my eating (I eat every meal, snack) but after I put anything in my system, I run to the bathroom, step on the scale, and check out my body. I do this multiple times a day and it’s gotten worse this past month. For some perspective, I am 5’4” and recently my weight has ranged from 115-117lbs. I don’t really fit into the description of the main eating disorders (I don’t avoid food, I don’t purge, I don’t binge), but I feel this obsession isn’t right. Do I have some type of eating disorder? Or is this body dysmorphia?

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jessie06 OP August 17th, 2021

I forgot to add... I have also gone on spurts of trying intermittent fasting, eating like normal, or pushing off eating if I know I’m gonna have a big meal. And after reading through some of these feeds, I realize I do have some food guilt as well...

RarelyCharlie August 17th, 2021

@jessie06 As you say, this doesn't really fit into the description of an eating disorder. But it does seem to fit the description of body dysmorphic disorder. I Googled it and this was the first article I found: Diagnosing BDD

Our BDD forum is here: Body Dysmorphic Disorder Support

Charlie