Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that causes an unhealthy body image. You may think you’re too heavy, even though a doctor might disagree. Your intense desire to lose weight or avoid weight gain causes you to diet, exercise to excess, or lean on medications.

Binge eating disorder (BED) describes a pattern of disordered eating that revolves around episodes of rapid and uncontrollable food consumption, similar to a “binging” episode of bulimia nervosa, but without any reciprocal purging or compensating behavior.

Diabulimia is intentional insulin restriction. People with diabulimia skip or shrink their insulin doses to lose weight.

Most people with diabulimia have type 1 diabetes. Some doctors call the condition type 1 diabetes with disordered eating (T1DE) or eating disorder diabetes mellitus type 1 instead. There is no official diagnostic term, as this condition is relatively new and poorly understood.

While some people may be concerned that they aren’t getting enough exercise, there is such a thing as too much exercise. Regular exercise can be great for physical and mental health, if it is medically appropriate and done in combination with adequate rest and nutrition, but when exercise becomes a compulsion, it can become physically and mentally harmful.

What is Purging Disorder? Some people may assume that if a person is purging regularly, then they must be suffering from bulimia nervosa (BN). However, individuals who are purging, but don’t have binging episodes associated with BN, may have a different eating disorder: purging disorder.

Non-purging bulimia involves eating a lot of food at once (bingeing) and then using methods like diet and exercise to limit weight gain. People with this form of bulimia can feel invisible, as their symptoms aren’t commonly discussed. But their suffering is real, and the dangers of non-purging bulimia are significant.