When someone says the words “eating disorder,” the first thought is usually of anorexia or bulimia.

But a lot of media organizations, educators and medical practitioners fail to tell the general public about the other eating disorders — disorders that people are not aware of, like binge eating, night eating syndrome, purging disorder, diabulimia and orthorexia.

“People do know so much about like anorexia and bulimia,” said Samantha Glaser, co-president of the Body Image and Eating Disorder Awareness club. “I think they just don’t understand [the other eating disorders]. They will be like, ‘OK, why are you doing that, just stop.’ And people don’t know about [them] and that [they’re] actually a thing that affect people.”

There are many misconceptions about eating disorders and what qualifies someone to be diagnosed with an eating disorder. 

Whether it causes distress is one of the biggest things that guides all mental health disorder diagnoses. 

“We are really looking at how this affects somebody’s quality of life and how pervasive is it in their life,” said Taylor Locker, psychologist and eating disorder coordinator at Student Counseling Services. “So to get a diagnosis for an eating disorder, it has to be happening at a relative frequency that causes distress.”

One of the main misconceptions that people have about eating disorders is that to have an eating disorder, you have to be underweight.

“A lot of people think, ‘I don’t have an eating disorder if I’m not thin,’” Locker said. “Really, if somebody has obsessive thoughts and they are restricting their food intake and they are afraid of fat, they can still have an eating disorder. They just may not have that component of being underweight. It can still remain lethal for them because it can still mess up their electrolytes, their kidney function and liver function.”

Another misconception that people have when it comes to eating disorders is that an eating disorder means a lack of food intake.

“It’s just so simple in other people’s heads who haven’t dealt with it or heard about,” said Glaser, who experienced binge eating. “With anorexia or bulimia, it’s OK if you need to go get help to figure out the problem and get better, but with binge eating, it’s just like, ‘OK, don’t eat that much.’ But it’s not controllable.”  

For Glaser, explaining the action was easier than explaining why she did it.

“Everything around you, you just literally want to consume,” Glaser said. “There is sometimes not a reason behind it. You just can’t control yourself almost. It’s not hard to explain, but the reasoning behind it is kinda hard to explain.” 

While some eating disorders have to do with the consumption of food, night eating syndrome has to do with the time of day the person is consuming their meals.

“A lot of the time people will wake up hungry in the morning because they often haven’t eaten all night long, but for someone who has night eating syndrome, they often don’t feel that hunger until often late in the day. And then in the late time of the day and sometimes even into the overnight hours, the individual is eating their primary amount of food,” Locker said. “They often feel guilty or ashamed about their food intake, and it can often feel out of control for them.”

In 2017, with health and fitness trends rising, professionals are seeing more cases of orthorexia. Locker said orthorexia is controversial because some people say it’s more of an obsessive disorder, while others believe it’s more of an eating disorder.

“Functionally, it can really look like an eating disorder,” Locker said. “An individual [with orthorexia] has a really high obsession with purity and quality of food. It can kind of start out often as a ‘I want to be healthier,’ and the person really might try to limit things that they believe are unhealthy for them.”

Limiting food makes the eating behavior dangerous.

“It often turns into really obsessive preoccupation, to very limited food intake,” Locker said. “And often, weight loss is associated with those behaviors.”

Locker said that society creating rules of food consumption can create stigmas around it. 

“I think in general, food is really a kind of touchy subject for most of us,” Locker said.  “Food has become very moral in our society so good people have good eating habits, and when you have bad eating habits, there is a lot of shame and stigma around that.”

At least 30 million people of all genders and ages suffer from an eating disorder, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. With the rise of communication and access to the media, there is also a connection between the media and eating disorders.

“At the time [of my eating disorder], I followed like 200 fitness Instagrams,” Glaser said. “I followed more fitness accounts than I did my actual friends, so that’s what I was seeing every day. I would see people on there and be like, ‘OK, why don’t I look like this?’ And I think that played a huge role.”

During her junior year of high school, Glaser made the step to unfollow the accounts and only keep three that really motivated her. It caused a “huge, different mindset change.”

“When you are looking at [Instagram] 24/7, you are comparing, even though people don’t mean to, they are comparing themselves,” Glaser said.

With the media having an influence on the rise in eating disorder statistics, the access to media can also have a positive effect on the recovery of eating disorders. There are hundreds of blogs, YouTube videos and books about people sharing their experiences and stories.

“With getting better, media played a huge role in that, it can definitely be on both sides of the spectrum,” Glaser said. “When I was in high school, the Demi Lovato movie came out. She shared all the things about her eating disorder, and it was one of those things where I was like, ‘oh my god, I love Demi,’ and she motivated me. So it definitely can play either way.”

One of the main goals of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week is to bring awareness to all types of eating disorders and break the stereotypes that people associate with eating disorders.

“Just do your research, don’t be afraid to reach out,” Glaser said. “There is always someone out there who has been through the same thing or is going through the same thing, so you shouldn’t feel so alone.”