The Connection Between Disordered Eating and Digestive Issues

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

When it comes to disordered eating and digestive issues, they both play into each other. It’s common for people with ongoing digestive problems to develop disordered patterns of eating in their effort to reduce their symptoms and discomfort. This response (although disordered) is understandable. When in pain or constantly bloated, one might to want to control their diet to gain some relief. Unfortunately, these attempts at control can often make things worse, intensifying digestive distress instead of easing it. On the other hand, people who already struggle with disordered eating or eating disorders often develop digestive issues as a result of their eating behaviours. These gut symptoms can then reinforce restrictive or compensatory eating patterns, creating a frustrating and exhausting cycle.

How Disordered Eating Affects Digestion:

Malnutrition

When your body doesn’t get enough nourishment, the muscles along the digestive tract weaken. This slows down the movement of food through your system. The result? Constipation, gas build-up, bloating, and delayed stomach emptying that leaves you feeling overly full for an extended period of time.

Slowed Metabolism

In times of energy shortage, our bodies lower our metabolic rate to conserve energy for essential functions like breathing and heart rate. Digestive processes take a backseat, often leading to constipation, bloating, sluggish digestion, and abdominal discomfort.

Reduced Dietary Variety

A diverse diet fuels a healthy gut microbiome. When foods or entire food groups are restricted, gut bacteria lose the variety of fibres and nutrients they rely on to thrive. This can disrupt balance in the gut, making digestion less efficient.

Anxiety and the Stress Response

Many people with disordered eating feel intense anxiety around mealtimes. This activates the sympathetic nervous system, putting one in fight-or-flight mode. In this nervous state, blood flow is directing away from the digestive organs (because it is not essential to digest food while running away from or fighting a lion). With less blood flow and oxygenation of the digestion organs, digestion becomes less efficient, leading to symptoms like bloating and constipation.

Purging Behaviours

Frequent use of laxatives weakens the muscles in the colon, eventually causing the bowel to rely on them to function. This leads to constipation and bloating, which in turn drive further laxative use. A difficult cycle to break. Similarly, repeated self-induced vomiting can damage the valve that separates the stomach from the oesophagus. When pressure builds up in the stomach after eating, this can lead to reflux or heartburn as food and acid move upward.

Frequent Consumption of 'Diet Foods'

Artificial sweeteners, commonly found in diet or low-calorie products, can negatively alter gut bacteria. This imbalance (known as dysbiosis) can contribute to symptoms such as bloating, wind, constipation, diarrhoea, nausea, and abdominal discomfort. Additionally, some non-nutritive sweeteners, like xylitol and erythritol, are osmotic laxatives - meaning they draw water into the colon. This can lead to loose stools.

How Digestive Issues Can Lead to Disordered Eating:

Restriction and Elimination

People experiencing digestive problems often begin cutting out certain foods or entire food groups in an effort to ease their symptoms. Over time, this can evolve into rigid control over food choices and growing anxiety around eating unfamiliar or previously avoided foods.

Irregular Eating Patterns

People with digestive issues may start skipping meals to prevent the discomfort that often follows eating. This can create a strong association between food and discomfort, leading to an unwillingness to eat.

Mental Health

About 90 percent of serotonin (the neurotransmitter that supports mood regulation) is produced in the gut. When the gut microbiome becomes imbalanced due to limited food variety or fibre intake, serotonin production can fall. This may increase the risk of anxiety and depression - two conditions that contribute to occurrence or persistence of disordered eating.

The Bottom Line

The connection between digestive health and disordered eating is deeply intertwined, with one often fuelling the other. Understanding this link is an important step toward healing both your relationship with food and your gut.

If you’re dealing with digestive symptoms, disordered eating, or both, and would like to work on improving your gut health and relationship with food - book a consultation below.

Book a Consultation