Helping A Friend With an Eating Disorder Find Healing, Hope, and Health

The best thing you can do for your friend is understand what they are going through. This begins with knowing the basics about their disorder and the underlying emotional issues from which their disordered eating stems. By understanding both the behavioral and psychological components of your friend’s eating disorder, you can ensure that you not only speak about their experience accurately, but in a way that is relevant and meaningful for them.

Eating disorders commonly occur alongside another mental health disorder, such as depression, anxiety, or PTSD. As such, it can be useful to extend your education beyond the eating disorder itself to understand the full scope of what your friend is experiencing and gain deeper insight into their struggle. While an eating disorder is a serious illness in its own right, acknowledging the complete picture of emotional suffering is often vital to ensuring that your friend feels supported.

Bringing up someone’s eating disorder can be an emotional experience for both of you. Setting up a meeting to talk privately in a relaxed environment can be critical to helping your friend feel comfortable and supported. Make sure there are no distractions or unwanted intrusions; this is a delicate topic and it must be given the respect it deserves.

Tell your friend that you are worried about them in a supportive and loving way. As the Help Guide suggests, “Share your memories of specific times when you felt concerned about the person’s eating behavior,” and explain why “you think these things indicate that there could be a problem that needs professional help.” People with eating disorders often feel intense shame and have gone out of their way to keep their illness hidden from others; as such, speaking about it may make your friend feel vulnerable and exposed. However, many also find it deeply relieving to finally be able to talk about this painful part of their lives and know that someone cares. Be sure to reassure your friend that your concerns come from a place of love and caring, not a desire to control them or invade their privacy.

Eating disorders are medical conditions with deep and complex emotional roots, not arbitrary choices or character flaws. People who experience these disorders are in deep psychological turmoil and need your support; judgment, shaming, or minimizing what they are going through will only serve to alienate your friend rather than guide them toward the help they need. To avoid blaming, frame your conversation around “I” statements rather than “you” statements. For example, “I am concerned that you are not eating enough” or “It makes me scared to see you overeating” are more open and supportive ways of bringing up your concerns than “You need to eat more” or “You are going to get health problems if you keep this up.”

It can be tempting to try to talk someone out of their eating disorder by reassuring them that they are beautiful or thin. However, this can be counterproductive; eating disorders have nothing to do with how someone really looks, and trying to talk someone out of an eating disorder based on their appearance ignores the true reality of the illness. Additionally, focusing on appearance can reinforce the idea that someone’s value as a human being is tied to physical appearance and weight. Instead, focus on the things that truly matter and the reasons you love, admire, and respect your friend. As the National Eating Disorders Association says, “Compliment your friend’s wonderful personality, successes, or accomplishments. Remind your friend that ‘true beauty’ is not skin deep.”