Eating Concerns

Therapy for Disordered Eating in Kanata​

support for disordered eating, body image concerns, and healing your relationship with food​

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Struggling with food, body image, or eating patterns can feel exhausting, isolating, and hard to explain—especially when your relationship with food has become tied to stress, shame, control, or self-worth. You may find yourself constantly thinking about what you “should” or “shouldn’t” eat, feeling guilt after meals, skipping food to compensate, binge eating when overwhelmed, or feeling stuck in cycles of restriction and loss of control.

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Disordered eating doesn’t have to look a certain way to be valid. You do not need to meet the criteria for an eating disorder diagnosis to deserve support. If food, eating, movement, or body image are taking up too much space in your mind or affecting your emotional well-being, relationships, or day-to-day life, therapy can help.

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What Is Disordered Eating?

Disordered eating is an umbrella term used to describe a range of unhealthy or distressing eating behaviours, thoughts, and patterns that interfere with your relationship with food, body image, and overall well-being. These patterns may not always meet the criteria for a formal eating disorder diagnosis, but they can still have a significant impact on your mental, emotional, and physical health.

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Disordered eating often develops as a way of coping—whether with anxiety, stress, overwhelm, perfectionism, low self-esteem, trauma, difficult life experiences, or a need to feel more in control. Over time, these behaviours can become rigid, emotionally charged, and difficult to break.

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Disordered eating may involve:

• Restricting food or skipping meals

• Obsessive thoughts about calories, food rules, or “clean eating”

• Binge eating or feeling out of control around food

• Compensatory behaviours after eating, such as over-exercising or purging

• Intense guilt, shame, or anxiety around eating

• Preoccupation with body size, weight, or appearance

• Difficulty recognizing hunger and fullness cues

• Feeling like food and body image are consuming too much mental space

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Whether these patterns have been present for years or have only recently started to affect you, therapy can help you better understand what is going on beneath the surface and begin moving toward a more peaceful, sustainable relationship with food and yourself.

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Signs You May Be Struggling With Disordered Eating

Disordered eating can be difficult to identify because many unhealthy behaviours are normalized in our culture. You may be struggling even if others do not notice—or even if you are not sure whether your concerns are “serious enough.”

 

Some signs of disordered eating can include:

• Frequently skipping meals or delaying eating

• Feeling anxious, guilty, or ashamed after eating

• Going through cycles of restriction followed by overeating or binge eating

• Feeling out of control around certain foods

• Obsessively tracking calories, macros, weight, or exercise

• Categorizing foods as “good” or “bad”

• Avoiding social situations that involve food

• Constantly thinking about food, eating, or your body

• Using food to cope with stress, sadness, loneliness, or overwhelm

• Feeling distressed when routines around food or movement are disrupted

• Tying your self-worth to your eating habits, appearance, or weight

• Engaging in compensatory behaviours such as purging or excessive exercise

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If any of these patterns feel familiar, therapy can offer a supportive place to explore them with curiosity rather than judgment.

 

Types of Disordered Eating

Disordered eating can take many forms, and not everyone’s experience will look the same. Some people move between different patterns over time, while others may struggle with a combination of behaviours all at once. Understanding the type of patterns you are experiencing can be an important step toward healing.

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Restrictive Eating

Restrictive eating may involve skipping meals, eating very little, cutting out large categories of food, or feeling unable to eat unless certain conditions are met. Restriction can be driven by body image concerns, fear of weight gain, anxiety, perfectionism, or a desire to feel more in control.

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Binge Eating

Binge eating involves episodes of eating large amounts of food while feeling out of control or unable to stop. These episodes are often accompanied by shame, secrecy, guilt, emotional distress, or feeling disconnected during the experience. Binge eating can also be linked to restriction, emotional overwhelm, trauma, or unmet emotional needs.

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Emotional Eating

Emotional eating happens when food becomes a primary way of coping with difficult emotions such as stress, sadness, loneliness, anger, boredom, or anxiety. While emotional eating is a common human experience, it can become distressing when it feels automatic, overwhelming, or tied to shame and self-criticism.

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Compulsive or Obsessive Eating Patterns

Some people feel consumed by thoughts about food, rules around eating, or the need to eat in a very specific way. This can include rigid meal routines, fear of certain foods, repetitive cycles of “being good” and then “falling off track,” or feeling panicked when eating plans change.

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Purging or Compensatory Behaviours

Compensatory behaviours are actions used to “make up for” eating and may include purging, excessive exercise, fasting, or other attempts to regain a sense of control after eating. These behaviours can be emotionally and physically harmful and are often connected to shame, fear, and distress around food or body image.

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Orthorexic Tendencies

Some people become intensely focused on eating “clean,” “healthy,” or “perfectly.” While nutrition and health can be important, this can become disordered when the pursuit of healthy eating becomes rigid, anxiety-provoking, socially isolating, or tied to self-worth.

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Body Image-Driven Eating Patterns

For many people, disordered eating is deeply connected to body image distress. This can include constant body checking, comparing yourself to others, avoiding food out of fear of changing your body, or feeling as though your body size determines your value.

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Not everyone with disordered eating will fit neatly into one category—and that’s okay. Therapy can help you understand your specific patterns, the function they may be serving, and how to begin shifting them with care and support.

 

Disordered Eating in Adults

Disordered eating in adults can be especially painful because it is often minimized, hidden, or mistaken for “discipline,” “healthy habits,” or simply being stressed. Adults may be juggling work, parenting, caregiving, relationships, life transitions, or longstanding mental health concerns while quietly struggling with food and body image behind the scenes.

 

For adults, disordered eating may show up as:

• Chronic dieting or repeated attempts to control weight

• Binge eating in response to stress, burnout, or emotional overwhelm

• Restricting food during busy periods or after feeling “out of control”

• Difficulty eating consistently due to anxiety, perfectionism, or body image concerns

• Shame around eating in front of others

• Feeling stuck in cycles of “starting over” with food or exercise

• Increased body image distress after major life transitions, pregnancy, illness, aging, or relationship changes

 

Many adults also carry years of painful beliefs about food, weight, and worthiness—often shaped by family dynamics, bullying, diet culture, trauma, or earlier experiences of criticism and control. Therapy can help you explore these patterns with compassion, understand where they come from, and begin building a more flexible, trusting relationship with food and your body.

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Disordered Eating in Teens

Disordered eating in teens can develop gradually or appear during periods of change, stress, identity development, or increased self-consciousness. Adolescence is already a time of significant emotional, social, and physical change, which can make teens especially vulnerable to body image struggles, food anxiety, and comparison.

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In teens, disordered eating may show up as:

• Skipping meals or avoiding eating at school

• Becoming highly focused on calories, ingredients, or “healthy eating”

• Distress after eating or fear of gaining weight

• Increased body checking or comparing themselves to peers or social media

• Secretive eating, binge eating, or eating in response to difficult emotions

• Strong reactions to comments about appearance, food, or body changes

• Withdrawing from social events involving food

• Using food or body control as a way to cope with stress, pressure, anxiety, or low self-esteem

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Teens may not always have the language to explain what they are experiencing. Sometimes it shows up as irritability, withdrawal, perfectionism, anxiety, conflict at mealtimes, or a growing sense of shame around food and their body. Therapy can help teens understand what they are feeling, build healthier coping tools, strengthen self-esteem, and develop a more supportive relationship with food and themselves.

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At Aura Counselling, we work with teens in a way that is collaborative, respectful, and developmentally attuned—creating space for them to feel heard, understood, and supported without judgment.​

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How Therapy for Disordered Eating Can Help

Disordered eating counselling is not about forcing change, focusing on willpower, or telling you what you “should” eat. It is about understanding the emotional, cognitive, relational, and behavioural patterns underneath your eating struggles and helping you move toward healing in a way that feels safe, sustainable, and compassionate.

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Therapy for disordered eating can help you:

• Understand the underlying function of your eating patterns

• Identify triggers related to stress, emotions, trauma, or relationships

• Build more awareness of hunger, fullness, emotions, and body cues

• Reduce guilt, shame, and all-or-nothing thinking around food

• Challenge harsh inner criticism and body-based self-worth

• Develop more flexible coping strategies for stress and difficult emotions

• Explore the impact of perfectionism, trauma, family dynamics, and diet culture

• Strengthen self-esteem and self-compassion

• Rebuild trust in your body and your ability to care for yourself

• Create a healthier, more peaceful relationship with food over time

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Healing from disordered eating is often not linear, and therapy offers a place to move at a pace that feels manageable while receiving support along the way.

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Our Approach to Disordered Eating

At Aura Counselling, we take a compassionate, trauma-informed, and non-judgmental approach to disordered eating. We understand that these patterns often develop for important reasons—and that healing begins not with shame, but with curiosity, safety, and support.

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Depending on your needs, therapy may include support with:

• Exploring the emotional roots of disordered eating

• Understanding the connection between food, coping, and nervous system regulation

• Working through body image distress and self-criticism

• Building emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills

• Addressing perfectionism, people-pleasing, and control-based coping patterns

• Processing relational wounds, trauma, or attachment experiences that may be contributing to eating struggles

• Strengthening self-awareness, self-compassion, and internal trust

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Our therapists draw from evidence-based and trauma-informed approaches such as CBT, DBT, EFT, IFS, attachment-based therapy, and somatic approaches where appropriate. We tailor therapy to your goals, your pace, and your lived experience.​

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What to Expect in your Disordered Eating therapy Sessions

In therapy, we will begin by getting to know your experience—what your relationship with food and your body has been like, what patterns you are noticing, what feels hardest right now, and what support would feel most helpful.

 

Sessions may include:

• Exploring your current eating patterns, thoughts, and emotional triggers

• Understanding how stress, trauma, anxiety, perfectionism, or relationships may be influencing your eating behaviours

• Identifying cycles of shame, restriction, bingeing, or compensation

• Learning skills to cope with difficult emotions in ways that feel more supportive and sustainable

• Building awareness of body cues, emotional needs, and self-talk

• Working toward a more compassionate and balanced relationship with food and yourself

 

Our goal is not to judge your behaviours or pressure you into change before you are ready. Instead, we aim to create a space where you can feel safe enough to explore what is happening, understand yourself more deeply, and move toward healing with support.

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FAQ: Disordered Eating Counselling

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Do I need an eating disorder diagnosis to start therapy?

No. You do not need a formal diagnosis to begin therapy for disordered eating. Many people struggle with food, body image, guilt around eating, binge eating, restriction, or obsessive food thoughts without meeting criteria for a specific eating disorder diagnosis. If your relationship with food is causing distress or affecting your well-being, therapy can still be helpful.

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Can therapy help if I’m not sure whether what I’m experiencing is “serious enough”?

Yes. Many people minimize their struggles because they do not believe they are “sick enough” or because their eating patterns do not look the way they expect disordered eating to look. If food, eating, exercise, or body image are causing stress, shame, preoccupation, or emotional distress, you deserve support. Therapy can help you make sense of what you are experiencing without needing to label it perfectly first.

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Is disordered eating counselling focused on weight loss or dieting?

No. Therapy for disordered eating is not about dieting, weight loss, or controlling your body. Our focus is on helping you understand the emotional, behavioural, and relational patterns affecting your relationship with food and your body. We work toward reducing shame, increasing self-awareness, and building a more compassionate, sustainable relationship with eating.

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Can disordered eating be connected to anxiety, trauma, or perfectionism?

Yes. Disordered eating is often connected to deeper emotional experiences such as anxiety, trauma, perfectionism, low self-esteem, chronic stress, or a need for control. For some people, eating patterns become a way to cope with overwhelming emotions or difficult life experiences. Therapy can help you explore those underlying factors and build healthier ways of coping.

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What if I feel embarrassed talking about my eating habits?

That is very common. Many people feel shame, guilt, or fear of being judged when talking about food, binge eating, restriction, or body image. Therapy offers a private, compassionate, and non-judgmental space where you can talk openly about what has been happening at your own pace. You do not need to have the “right words” or have everything figured out before starting.

 

Will therapy focus only on food?

Not necessarily. While food and eating patterns may be part of what brings you to therapy, sessions often explore the bigger picture as well—such as stress, relationships, self-esteem, trauma, perfectionism, emotional regulation, and the ways you have learned to cope. The goal is not just to change behaviours, but to understand what is driving them and support lasting healing.

 

Can parents reach out if they’re concerned about their teen’s eating habits?

Yes. If you are worried that your teen may be struggling with food restriction, binge eating, body image concerns, obsessive food rules, or increasing anxiety around eating, reaching out for support can be an important first step. Therapy can help teens better understand what they are experiencing while also supporting families in navigating these concerns with care and sensitivity.

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Is virtual therapy effective for disordered eating?

For many people, yes. Virtual therapy can be an effective option for disordered eating support and may make it easier to access care consistently from the comfort of your own space. It can also be a helpful option for teens and adults across Ontario who are looking for specialized support without needing to travel to an office.​

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Book an Appointment

If food, body image, or eating patterns are affecting your mental health, relationships, or quality of life, we can offer support.. 

At Aura Counselling, we offer disordered eating counselling for teens and adults; in-person appointments are available in the Kanata/Stittsville area, and virtually across Ottawa and Ontario.

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If you are ready to explore support for disordered eating, we invite you to connect with our team.