School Setting: Eating Disorders 101

In school settings, you may encounter students who are experiencing an eating disorder. Eating disorders can have a negative impact on the student’s life physically, emotionally, academically, and socially.

Anorexia Nervosa is characterised by extreme food restriction, significant weight loss and an intense fear of gaining weight. People commonly associate anorexia nervosa with being in a smaller body. This is not always the case; some anorexia patients are not in a smaller body.

Bulimia Nervosa is characterised by episodes of binge eating followed by compensatory behaviours, which are intended to prevent weight gain. They include self-inducing vomiting, dieting, fasting, excessive exercise and the misuse of laxatives, diuretics or other medications and drugs.

Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is characterised by episodes of binge eating without compensatory behaviours. Whilst BED can be associated with a larger body, sufferers of BED may be in a body of any size, especially in adolescence.

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (AFRID) is characterised by an eating problem (such as avoidance of sensory characteristics of food, lack of appetite, concern about aversive consequence of eating) that results in failure to meet nutritional and/or energy requirements.

PICA is characterised by persistent eating of non-nutritive, non-food substances.

Rumination Disorder is characterised by repeated regurgitation of food that is re-chewed, re-swallowed or spit out.

Other Specified Feeding and Eating Disorders (OSFED) is a term used to describe an eating disorder that significantly impacts the individual’s life but does not meet full criteria for another eating disorder diagnoses. Although OSFED is less commonly spoken about around a third of people with eating disorders have OSFED and it carries the same level of psychological and physical consequences as other eating disorder diagnoses.

Adolescence is the most common period of onset for an eating disorder. There are currently about 1.2 million Australians living with an eating disorder, that's 3-8% of the population.

Hay P, Girosi F, Mond J. Prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of DSM-5 eating disorders in the Australian population. Journal of Eating Disorders. 2015;3(1):19. doi:10.1186/s40337-015-0056-0 

Butterfly Foundation. Paying the Price - The Economic and Social Impact of Eating Disorders in Australia.; 2012. Accessed October 16, 2020. https://butterfly.org.au/who-we-are/research-policy-publications/payingtheprice2024/