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Eating Concerns

Therapy for Disordered Eating in Kanata & Stittsville | Virtual Therapy Across Ontario

Support for Disordered Eating, Body Image Concerns & Your Relationship With Food

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, anxiety, perfectionism, self-esteem/self-worth, or even be caused by deeper trauma. 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.

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.

What Is Disordered Eating?

Disordered eating exists on a spectrum, and not everyone who struggles with food or body image will meet the criteria for a diagnosed eating disorder. Some people may experience significant distress around eating, body image, restriction, binge eating, emotional eating, or compensatory behaviours without receiving a formal diagnosis, while others may meet criteria for conditions such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge-eating disorder.

Regardless of whether you have a diagnosis, these patterns can have a meaningful impact on your mental health and quality of life. Eating disorder therapy can provide a supportive, non-judgmental space to better understand your relationship with food and your body, develop healthier coping strategies, and work toward greater flexibility and well-being.

Disordered eating often develops as a way of coping—whether with relationshihp difficulties, difficult family dynamics, anxiety, stress and 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Body Image and Disordered Eating

Your relationship with your body can have a significant impact on your relationship with food. For some people, body image concerns may involve frequently checking their appearance in the mirror, comparing their body to others, worrying about weight gain, or feeling uncomfortable with natural changes in their body. Others may avoid mirrors, photographs, certain clothing, social situations, or activities because of how they feel about their appearance. Social media can also intensify comparison and create unrealistic expectations about what bodies are “supposed” to look like.

These experiences can become exhausting and may lead to restrictive eating, binge eating, compensatory behaviours, or other patterns of disordered eating. When self-worth becomes closely tied to weight, shape, or appearance, it can be difficult to develop a more compassionate and accepting relationship with your body. Body image therapy can help you explore the beliefs and experiences underlying these concerns, reduce comparison and body-checking behaviours, and develop a healthier relationship with your body and food. You do not need to love your body every day to have a more peaceful relationship with it.

The Connection Between Disordered Eating, Anxiety and Perfectionism

For some people, disordered eating can become closely connected to anxiety, perfectionism, and a strong need for control. Rules around food, exercise, weight, or eating may initially create a sense of predictability or certainty when other areas of life feel overwhelming. Following strict rules can provide temporary relief from anxiety or create a sense of achievement and control. Over time, however, these patterns can become increasingly rigid and difficult to break.

The more you rely on food rules or compensatory behaviours to manage difficult emotions, the more anxiety can develop when those rules are challenged or disrupted. This can create a cycle in which perfectionism leads to increasingly rigid expectations, rigid eating patterns increase anxiety, and anxiety makes it even harder to be flexible. Therapy for disordered eating can help you understand this cycle, develop healthier ways of coping with uncertainty and difficult emotions, and build greater flexibility around food, exercise, and your relationship with your body.

The Connection Between Disordered Eating and Trauma

For some people, disordered eating can be connected to experiences of trauma, chronic stress, or difficult relationships. When you've experienced something overwhelming or have spent a long time feeling unsafe, food, exercise, or control over your body can sometimes become a way of coping. Restricting food, binge eating, or engaging in other eating-related behaviours may provide temporary relief, distraction, numbness, or a sense of control when emotions feel difficult to manage.

Trauma can also affect the way you experience your body. Some people may feel disconnected from their body, experience shame about their body, or use food and exercise as a way to cope with uncomfortable physical or emotional sensations. Over time, these patterns can become difficult to change, even when you recognize that they are no longer serving you.

Trauma-informed therapy for disordered eating can help you understand the connection between past experiences, your nervous system, emotions, and eating behaviours without judgment. Rather than focusing only on changing your relationship with food, therapy can also address the underlying experiences and coping patterns that may be contributing to your struggles. The goal is to help you develop safer, more flexible ways of managing difficult emotions while rebuilding a sense of trust and safety within your relationship with your body.

The Connection Between Disordered Eating, Self-Esteem and Self-Worth

For many people, improving their relationship with food also involves addressing the underlying beliefs they hold about themselves. Self-esteem therapy can be an important part of this process, helping you explore where negative self-beliefs come from and how they may influence your relationship with food, your body, and your sense of worth. Therapy can help you develop greater self-compassion, challenge harsh or perfectionistic expectations, and build a stronger sense of identity that isn't dependent on appearance, weight, or achievement. By strengthening self-esteem and developing a more compassionate relationship with yourself, you can begin to create a foundation for lasting change beyond simply changing eating behaviours.

Disordered Eating and ADHD/Neurodivergence

For some neurodivergent people, eating patterns can be influenced by differences in sensory processing, interoception, executive functioning, emotional regulation, and routines. ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence do not cause disordered eating, but they can sometimes shape how someone experiences food, hunger, body cues, and eating habits.

For example, you may experience:

Difficulty recognizing hunger or fullness cues, particularly when you're deeply focused on an activity or have difficulty noticing internal body signals.
Sensory sensitivities related to textures, smells, tastes, temperatures, or the appearance of certain foods.
Executive functioning challenges that make meal planning, grocery shopping, preparing food, or eating consistently feel overwhelming.
Strong reliance on routines or familiar foods, with changes to eating routines feeling stressful or uncomfortable.
Emotional eating or difficulty regulating emotions, particularly when food becomes a readily available way to cope with overwhelm, boredom, stress, or intense emotions.
Forgetting to eat or unintentionally going long periods without eating, followed by intense hunger, overeating, or feeling out of control around food.
Rigid food preferences or eating patterns that may be connected to sensory needs, predictability, anxiety, or a desire to reduce overwhelm.

Therapy for ADHD can provide space to understand how neurodivergence may intersect with your relationship with food without treating these differences as something that needs to be "fixed." Instead, therapy can focus on developing strategies that work with your brain and nervous system while supporting a more flexible, sustainable relationship with eating.

If ADHD, autism, or other neurodivergent traits are part of your experience, your therapist can also help explore how executive functioning, sensory needs, emotional regulation, anxiety, and self-esteem may be connected to your eating patterns.

Disordered Eating and Emotional Regulation

Disordered eating can sometimes become a way of managing difficult emotions. When you feel overwhelmed, anxious, lonely, stressed, or disconnected, eating-related behaviours may provide a temporary sense of comfort, distraction, control, or relief. For some people, this may involve emotional eating or binge eating, while others may respond to difficult emotions by restricting food or becoming increasingly focused on food, exercise, or body image.

Although these behaviours may provide temporary relief, they can make emotional distress more difficult to manage over time. Feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, or self-criticism may follow, reinforcing the cycle and making it harder to identify and respond to emotions in healthier ways.

Therapy can help you better understand the emotions and triggers underlying your eating patterns and develop more effective ways of coping with distress. Therapy for disordered eating may include learning emotional regulation skills, increasing awareness of your needs, and developing coping strategies that allow you to respond to difficult emotions without relying on food or eating-related behaviours.

How Disordered Eating Can Affect Relationships

Disordered eating doesn't only affect your relationship with food and your body—it can also affect your relationships with the people around you. Anxiety about eating in front of others, avoiding social meals, feeling uncomfortable in your body, or worrying about how others perceive you can make it difficult to fully participate in social and family experiences. You may find yourself withdrawing from loved ones, avoiding certain events, or feeling shame or embarrassment about your eating habits.

Eating concerns can also create tension within relationships, particularly when partners or family members are worried about your well-being but don't understand what you're experiencing. You may feel pressured, judged, or misunderstood, while loved ones may feel unsure about how to support you.

Therapy can provide a space to explore how disordered eating is affecting your relationships and help you communicate your needs more openly. When appropriate, relationship therapy can also be part of the healing process, particularly when relationship stress, conflict, or difficulties with communication are contributing to emotional distress. Building stronger and more supportive relationships can be an important part of recovery and can help you feel less alone in the process.

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.

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. Teen therapy can help them better understand what they are experiencing, develop healthier coping strategies, and build a more supportive relationship with food and themselves.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

What to Expect From Disordered Eating Therapy

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.

When Additional Eating Disorder Support May Be Needed

Therapy can be an important part of recovery from disordered eating and eating disorders, but some individuals may benefit from additional medical or nutritional support. If you are experiencing significant food restriction, frequent bingeing or purging, compensatory behaviours such as excessive exercise, or symptoms that may be affecting your physical health, we will encourage you to work with a physician, registered dietitian, or specialized eating-disorder program alongside therapy.

A collaborative approach can help ensure that both your mental and physical health are supported throughout the recovery process. If you are unsure what level of support you need, we can help you explore appropriate next steps and connect you with additional resources when needed.

Eating Disorder Therapy in Ottawa, Kanata & Stittsville

If you're looking for support with disordered eating, body image concerns, or your relationship with food, Aura Counselling Services offers therapy in Kanata and Stittsville, as well as virtual therapy for clients across Ontario. We work with teens and adults experiencing concerns such as restrictive eating, binge eating, emotional eating, body checking, food-related anxiety, perfectionism, and other patterns that may be affecting their well-being.

Our approach is compassionate, collaborative, and individualized. We recognize that disordered eating can be connected to anxiety, trauma, perfectionism, self-esteem, relationships, and a desire for control. Whether you're looking for eating disorder therapy in Ottawa, disordered eating therapy in Kanata, or body image counselling in Stittsville, we can help you explore the underlying patterns and develop a healthier, more flexible relationship with food and your body.

If you're located outside Ottawa, virtual therapy may also be available to you across Ontario, making it possible to access support from the comfort and privacy of your own home.

Frequently Asked Questions About Disordered Eating Therapy

What is the difference between disordered eating and an eating disorder?

Disordered eating is a broad term used to describe unhealthy, distressing, or rigid patterns around food, eating, exercise, or body image. These patterns can include chronic dieting, restricting food, binge eating, emotional eating, rigid food rules, or compensatory behaviours. They can have a significant impact on your emotional well-being and quality of life, even if they do not meet the criteria for a specific eating disorder.

An eating disorder is a diagnosable mental health condition with specific clinical criteria, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge-eating disorder. Eating disorders can vary in severity and may require specialized medical, nutritional, and psychological support.

Importantly, you do not need to have a formal eating disorder diagnosis to seek help. If your relationship with food, exercise, or your body is causing distress or taking up significant mental or emotional space, therapy can help you understand these patterns and work toward a healthier relationship with food and yourself.

Is disordered eating counselling focused on weight loss or dieting?

No. Disordered eating counselling is not focused on weight loss, calorie counting, or dieting. Instead, therapy focuses on understanding the thoughts, emotions, behaviours, and experiences that may be affecting your relationship with food and your body.

Together, we may explore patterns such as restriction, binge eating, emotional eating, food rules, body image concerns, guilt or shame around eating, and the ways anxiety, perfectionism, trauma, or stress may influence your eating behaviours.

The goal is to help you develop a more flexible, compassionate, and sustainable relationship with food and yourself, rather than focusing on changing your weight or controlling your body. If nutritional support is also needed, therapy can be coordinated with a registered dietitian or other healthcare professionals as appropriate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Book an Appointment

Therapists Who Provide Disordered Eating Support

Meet our team of therapists who can support you navigate your eating concerns. Our therapists offer in-person appointments at our office located in Kanata and Stittsville area as well as virtually.