Dating With An Eating Disorder

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Last updated on January 25th, 2025 at 10:53 pm

Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions with many physical symptoms.  An eating disorder can often be all-consuming when it comes to your mental, physical, and emotional welfare.  Dating with an eating disorder can be difficult, as the eating disorder often will take up most of your physical and emotional capacity.  

Challenges in dating with an eating disorder include: 

  • Desire to socially isolate 
  • Low energy 
  • Inability to participate in activities involving food
  • Poor body image leads to difficulty connecting
  • Lack of ability to participate in intimacy 

Intimate relationships are an important part of life.  If you have an eating disorder, you deserve to share love and feel loved.  

Understanding the challenges that can come up when dating in eating disorder recovery can be helpful in both your eating disorder recovery and having a lasting and healthy relationship

This article explores what it’s like to date with an eating disorder emotionally and physically. It also explores ways to cope with eating disorder symptoms while simultaneously pursuing a healthy relationship. 

Relationships and Eating Disorders

Eating disorders can affect your relationships with everyone including your

  • Family
  • Co-workers
  • healthcare providers
  • Teachers
  • Children
  • Romantic partners 

Your relationship with a significant other is most likely the relationship that the eating disorder will have the most impact on. 

A person with an eating disorder has a very loud eating disorder voice that can translate all the things other people are saying about you into something negative.

Having an eating disorder on board can make it difficult to seek out or maintain romantic relationships because of both the mental and physical symptoms of the eating disorder. If you are in a romantic partnership and you have an eating disorder, your partner can be a great ally in your recovery with the right professional guidance. 

infographic with cartoon man and woman on the challenges of dating with an eating disorder

Dating With An Eating Disorder

Romantic relationships typically suffer the most during an eating disorder because these are the people we spend the most time with.  These are also the people who have access to your body in its most vulnerable state. 

Your eating disorder also probably has tried to convince you that you need to have the perfect body before you even pursue a romantic relationship, which can make both pursuing and participating in a relationship difficult.

Some aspects of romantic relationships that are a challenge with an eating disorder on board include: 

Communication

If you are in a relationship with someone with an eating disorder, their disease can often translate just about anything said into something negative. 

Struggles in communication come up because: 

  • There are actual changes in your brain anatomy that make it difficult to reason
  • Your eating disorder translates most conversations into “you’re fat”
  • You spend most of the day thinking about food and your body which makes it difficult to work through relationship problems or think long-term 
  • You might be struggling with other clinical conditions as well such as anxiety or depression which can make you want to withdraw from others 

Social Isolation

Eating disorders often come with the desire to be socially isolated. This can make it difficult to connect with a romantic partner.  

Social isolation with an eating disorder comes from: 

  • Not wanting to eat around other people including your partner
  • Feeling like you don’t deserve to eat
  • Being afraid of the types of food that might come with social gatherings 
  • Having anxiety about how a partner prepares food leads to confrontation
  • Not having the energy to go to social gatherings because the body is in starvation syndrome 
  • Fearing others will judge how you look 
  • Having anxiety about your clothes can make you want to avoid social gatherings
infographic of eating disorders in relationships

Body Image

Negative body image can take a significant toll on a romantic relationship. 

Body image challenges with an eating disorder can be problematic because: 

  • You might be afraid to be vulnerable with a partner physically
  • A lot of the day may be taken up body checking
  • You may body-check others and fear your partner is doing the same which could lead to resentment in the relationship 
  •  You may spend hours a day trying to change your body which can interfere with time with a romantic partner 
  • You might not pursue relationships because you feel you need to change your body first

Secretive Behavior 

The secretive nature of an eating disorder can leave you feeling disconnected from a romantic partner. 

Here are some ways secretive behaviors can hurt relationships:

  • It can feel difficult to be truthful  with your romantic partner because you feel intense guilt and shame about your food behaviors
  • You may feel like you are lying to your partner because you hide food 
  • You may have to hide restrictive or purging behaviors with an eating disorder from a partner leaving you feeling disconnected
challenges of dating with ed infographic

Sexual Intimacy 

Sexual intimacy can be very difficult for people with an eating disorder. This can disrupt the connection you can have with a romantic partner.  

Sexual intimacy is challenging with an eating disorder because: 

  • You may lack sexual desire altogether because of malnourishment
  • Men may experience erectile dysfunction as a result of their eating disorder
  • You may feel ashamed of your body and have a fear of being naked
  • The endurance required for sexual intimacy may be difficult for a malnourished body
  • It may be difficult to climax with an eating disorder 
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Triggers Topics of Eating Disorders in Relationships

While there might be many triggers that can cause eating disorder behaviors if you are dating someone with an eating disorder, there are some topics that are better left out of day-to-day discussion. 

Triggering topics for EDs in romantic relationships include: 

  • Making comments on their body (good, bad or neutral)
  • Making comments about what they’re eating
  • Commenting on the type of food they’re eating
  • Commenting on how much they’re eating 
  • Making comments about other people’s body
  • Fat shaming their body or other people’s bodies 
  • Commenting about your own fitness 
  • Food shaming yourself 
  • Making comments about how their clothes fit
  • Making comments about their clothing size 

Loving Someone With An Eating Disorder

The best way to support a person with an eating disorder is to help them in their eating disorder recovery. 

If you are the support person for someone with an eating disorder, it can be a difficult but important role.  

You can support a partner with an eating disorder by: 

If you suspect your partner has an eating disorder, it’s important to talk about the eating disorder in a supportive way. 

A full and lasting recovery is possible for your loved one with the right professional help and support. In order to participate fully in a romantic relationship, your partner will need to heal their relationship with your body and food.

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Shena Jaramillo. Registered Dietitian
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