This is partially due to the effects of starvation. When people are not adequately nourished, they think about food constantly, sometimes even dreaming about it. They also become depressed, isolated, and tired. They avoid relationships because they often feel others pressure them to eat. They are physically depleted, and feel compelled to engage in eating disordered behaviors.
Loved ones find eating disorders extremely difficult to understand and accept.
Seeing someone you love starve or damage her or his body is stressful. Often, parents, spouses, and others begin to become intrusive in their efforts to get the person to eat or to stop purging. Soon, the individual may see these loved ones as enemies trying to control her or him rather than help. Eating disorders may develop if a person has no other way to speak or represent feelings. Frequently family dynamics, problematic communication patterns, losses, or stresses like abuse have contributed to negative feelings the person could not deal with directly.