I’ve had countless conversations with parents, partners, siblings, and friends of people suffering from eating disorders, and all of them desperately want the same thing: to help their loved one feel supported in their recovery. Yet they often feel overwhelmed, helpless, and unsure how to be there in the way they’d like.

Honestly, eating disorders are complex illnesses that are hard to understand unless you’ve been there—but it is possible to learn about what can be harmful to your loved one’s healing, and how to help them feel safe and thrive in recovery. In this article, we’ll explore how you can not only avoid triggering your loved one, but also actively support their recovery. Read on to learn some of the most common food- and body-related triggers, guidance on what to say and do (and what to avoid), along with strategies and resources to help create a safer space for people struggling with eating disorders.

What does it mean to "trigger" someone?

The word “trigger” has become ubiquitous in recent years, but it’s often used pretty loosely, and in ways that don’t reflect its original meaning. When it comes to eating disorders, however, it’s important to understand that triggers are very real, and can have real consequences. “Triggering someone with an eating disorder means saying or doing something, often unintentionally, that activates thoughts, emotions, or behaviors tied to their struggles with food, body image, or exercise,” says dietitian Meagan Rothschild, RD, LD, CEDS.

According to Equip dietitian Stephanie Kile, MS, RDN, eating disorder triggers often cause “thoughts that align more with the eating disorder side of the brain than the recovery side.” Kile describes the eating disorder side as the part consumed by thoughts about food and body image, urges to engage in behaviors like restriction or purging, and black-and-white beliefs, like the idea that certain foods are good and others are bad. It’s the side of the brain a person in recovery is working to quiet, which is why it can be helpful for others to understand how to avoid activating it.

Common triggers for people with eating disorders

While each individual will have different triggers, there’s one giant and pretty universal trigger: diet culture. Diet culture is a system of social beliefs and expectations that values thinness above all, and everything about diet culture aligns with and reinforces the eating disorder mindset. It’s in our everyday conversations, gyms, classrooms, social media, mass media, and even doctors’ offices. Here are several specific eating disorder triggers that are rooted in diet culture:

Social media

“Social media is a huge trigger source for my clients, because they often see unrealistic expectations of how they should look or what they should be eating,” shares dietitian Brianna De la Cruz, MS, RDN. Several of my clients also find it difficult to use social media without their recovery being derailed by food- and body-focused posts, including “What-I-eat-in-a-day” reels, fear-mongering messages by self-proclaimed nutrition experts, and photos showcasing weight loss or body ideals.

Moreover, there’s ample research surrounding the negative effect that social media can have on young people’s body image and eating habits. One 2023 systematic review of people ages 10 to 24 showed that social media can promote negative social comparison, thin ideal internalization, and self-objectification, all of which can lead to eating disorders. One 2019 study of adolescents showed a link between a greater number of social media accounts and disordered eating, thoughts, and behaviors. The same study also linked greater daily time spent using Instagram and Snapchat to increased disordered eating behaviors in girls. Other research shows content labeled with “fitspiration” and “thinspiration” (content intended to inspire viewers to achieve fitness or thinness) can trigger young people already struggling with eating disorders.

Food language and judgement

In my practice, perhaps the largest trigger for my clients are the words of (usually) well-meaning and unaware partners, friends, family, colleagues, coaches, or teachers. Here are several typical examples of triggering food language (all of which are often and unfortunately viewed as normal in our culture):

• Commenting about the food on someone else’s plate: “Wow, she must be hungry.”
• Talking about how much you did or didn’t eat today: “I haven’t eaten all day.”
• Tying morality to foods: “I was so bad today—I had pizza” or “I was good at lunch—I had a salad.”
• Discussing plans to restrict: “I get one ‘cheat meal’ this weekend and then I’m back to skipping carbs” or “I’m going to save my calories for tonight’s dinner.”
• Talking negatively about calories: “That must be loaded with ‘empty calories.’”
• Describing your new diet: “I just started intermittent fasting and feel so much better.”
• Making claims about food and “health”: “It’s not healthy to eat dessert” or “Sugar is unhealthy.”

Such comments are typically triggering for eating disorder diagnoses like anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder. The triggers for ARFID, which is not tied to body image distress, are usually a bit different. De la Cruz explains that triggering someone with ARFID “could look like teasing them for resorting to safe foods at a restaurant or making fun of them for being nervous to try a new food, which validates their fear, causing them to be more hesitant in trying fear foods.”

Unfortunately, triggering food comments don’t stop with friends and family—healthcare providers are, in fact, one of the most common sources of harmful comments I see in my practice. Some of my clients leave their medical appointments upset and confused, because their doctors recommend restricting their diets based on their weight or lab work, without asking questions about their relationships to food or knowing about their eating disorder history. “I have had restricting patients being told to limit their sugar intake, which inhibits their progress significantly,” adds De la Cruz.

Body language and judgement

Body-based comments can also be detrimental. “It could be as simple as a common greeting many people use, such as ‘Wow you look like you lost weight,’” Kile says. Even saying something like “you look so healthy” can activate the eating disorder part of the brain, according to De la Cruz. “This can cause someone to believe they may have gained weight and cause them to overthink or want to restrict,” she explains.

Speaking negatively about your own body or other people’s bodies (like “He needs to lose weight,” “She lost weight since I last saw her,” or “I need to lose weight”) can also trigger the eating disorder sufferer. Such comments are examples of weight bias—negative attitudes and beliefs about and towards others because of their weight.

Like food language, weight language is an issue within healthcare settings, because many providers also have weight bias. In fact, I have spent many sessions with clients helping to reverse damage after medical appointments, because their doctors are operating from a weight bias lens and making recommendations harmful to eating disorder recovery. Unfortunately, doctors often praise larger-bodied patients for disordered behaviors (like counting calories) and mindsets (like striving for weight loss) that would be concerning for smaller-bodied people. While such treatment is problematic for anyone, those with eating disorders are especially vulnerable. In fact, a 2024 systematic review shows weight stigma, or discrimination against people based on their weight and size, is associated with increased disordered eating outcomes, like binge eating, drive for thinness, unhealthy weight control behaviors, and dietary restraint.

Problematic messaging and behaviors about exercise

Unfortunately, diet culture also dominates societal beliefs and behaviors surrounding exercise, often under the guise of health. The term “healthy” is “skewed to mean restrictive and overworked, where someone is praised for working out for hours in the gym and eating as little as possible to achieve weight loss,” Kile says. While it’s everywhere, eating disorder triggers related to exercise are common in gyms, yoga studios, and on social media. Here are some examples of words and actions that could trigger someone in recovery:

• Using exercise to justify or to punish yourself for eating fun foods (like French fries or cake)
• Discussing your exercise routine in detail
• Expressing guilt about not exercising
• Idolizing someone for being “disciplined” because they exercise every day
• Talking about burning or “earning” calories
• Belittling lower-intensity forms of exercise (e.g. “Walking doesn’t count.”)

Unexpected plans or surprises

Depending on how far along someone is in recovery, spontaneity can be difficult, especially when eating is involved. Here are a few examples of situations that can be triggering:

• Stopping for ice cream or dessert without talking about it beforehand
• Surprising your loved one with a meal out at a restaurant
• Making pancakes for breakfast on a weekday when they’re typically made on weekends

While such scenarios are fun, healthy, and normal (and ideally will one day become natural for the person struggling), for people who are still working toward recovery, they can cause significant distress and rouse the eating disorder brain.

How to help your loved one feel safe in recovery

While society-at large is steeped in diet culture and you can’t totally protect anyone from it, you can take steps to help create safe environments and relationships that support healing. Here are some strategies to consider as you navigate your loved one’s eating disorder recovery:

Be conscious of media

On social media, you can’t control what other people post, but you can control what you’re sharing online for your loved one to see. Before posting something, run it through an eating disorder trigger filter. Ask yourself, “Could this cause someone distress about food, body or exercise?” If the answer is maybe or yes, reconsider sharing it. Plus, unfollowing diet culture content from your own feed and following recovery-aligned content can help your own shifting mindset. If you’re a parent or guardian for a young person with an eating disorder who uses social media, have a discussion and set boundaries with them about who they follow and how much time they spend online.

Remember, diet culture runs rampant in movies and shows, too, and can impact eating disorder sufferers. For example, one of my larger-bodied clients was struggling with her parents and sister always wanting to watch Friends and laughing during scenes when Monica was wearing a fat suit and was portrayed in a negative light and the brunt of many jokes. Once she got her feelings out in the open, her family understood why it made her uncomfortable and decided to choose another show to watch together.

Look at your language

As you now know, many eating disorder triggers happen in conversations. “I encourage loved ones to shift from diet talk, body scrutiny, and food moralization to a more neutral, supportive way of discussing food and bodies,” Rothschild shares. Take an honest look at how you talk about food, body, and exercise, especially around your loved one. If you realize you may be adding fuel to the eating disorder fire, work to start learning how to speak about these topics without diet culture coloring everything. Here are some ways to help shift your language and behavior for the better:

• Resist commenting on other people’s food or body (including your own). Instead, comment on other aspects of them, like their style or personality.
• Strive for balance in your diet, allowing room for all foods, including more nutritious foods (like veggies) and fun foods (like pizza).
• If you must adjust your diet for medical reasons (e.g. high cholesterol or diabetes), let your loved one know.
• If you talk about food, focus on taste, texture, and smell, not nutritional content.
• Refrain from sharing any dieting plans or talking about disordered behaviors (like counting calories or restricting certain foods).
• Educate yourself about non-diet nutrition, which is a non-restrictive way of eating that prioritizes mental and physical well-being.
• If you haven’t already, learn about Health at Every Size, a public health framework that deconstructs the belief that weight equals health, and emphasizes that people of all body sizes are worthy of respect and care.
• If you talk about exercise around your loved one, do so from a lens of joyful, healthy movement, instead of coupling it with food and calories.
• Try talking about anything else in life. Kile suggests “leaning into new topics of interest to talk about, [like] hobbies, and other aspects of life such as work or school and what new song they’re listening to these days.”

“Focus on neutral, supportive conversations about food and bodies, respect boundaries, and validate your loved one's experiences without trying to ‘fix’ them,” Rothschild recommends. “Educating yourself on eating disorders and diet culture, fostering a non-judgmental food environment, and emphasizing connection over appearance or food-based comments can make a meaningful difference and create a safe space.”

If any suggested strategies make you feel uncomfortable or don’t feel realistic, it may be time to look at your own relationships to food, body, and exercise, and to seek professional help if necessary.

Have open communication

Not every person with an eating disorder has the same triggers, so it’s important to get to know your loved one’s specific vulnerabilities and what feels helpful to them. Ask them to share what feels supportive and what doesn’t, and ask for permission if you’re unsure about discussing a specific topic or partaking in a certain activity. “Asking permission is also a really helpful way to support an individual going through recovery and avoid causing a triggering moment for them,” Kile says.

Additionally, communicating with your loved one’s treatment team can help you build an even deeper understanding of how you could hinder and help their recovery.

Advocate outside the home

While you can’t control how others speak to your loved one, you can spread awareness and set boundaries in places like schools, gyms, and doctor’s offices. If you’re a parent, consider talking to your child’s school or doctor’s office about their health curriculum and practices (check out free resources for doing so). If your loved one is an adult, advocate for them at doctor’s appointments if necessary and help them to eventually do so on their own (check out these medical self-advocacy cards). Taking such measures will help your loved one feel safer as they go out in the world.

Go at their pace

While planning food-related surprises or being spontaneous might feel helpful, try to meet your loved one where they are. Perhaps they aren’t ready to try a new restaurant, but they make that a goal with their dietitian for the future, or maybe they don’t want to stop at the ice cream shop, but will have some at home with you. Openly talk about what they are and are not ready for, and discuss it with their dietitian if they have one. “I met with a parent who didn’t realize that forcing her daughter to try new foods was actually inhibiting her progress,” De la Cruz says. “A simple conversation helped make a huge difference in her recovery.” She suggests learning about your loved one’s safe and fear foods. “For parents, this could mean making sure safe food is around, but also supporting your child in facing fear foods and expanding their diet,” she says.

Does this mean I have to walk on eggshells forever?

When you’re supporting someone with an eating disorder, all the do’s and don’ts can feel overwhelming and a bit paralyzing—but these guidelines are important, and they not only help your loved one but also potentially help you develop a better relationship with food and body image. What’s more, it’s not forever.

“Supporting someone with an eating disorder doesn’t mean loved ones have to walk on eggshells forever,” Rothschild says, “but it does require mindfulness and consideration, especially in the early stages of recovery.” De la Cruz compares learning how to speak and act around someone with an eating disorder to becoming fluent in a new, healthier language and mindset. In fact, many of my clients’ friends and family end up addressing and improving their own food and body relationships in the process.

Plus, the further along people are in recovery, the less triggering everyday diet culture comments and actions become. “Those individuals will get to a better, more solid footing in their recovery where those topics are no longer triggering, but that timeline varies for everyone,” Kile explains. Eventually, they become less impacted by triggering, diet culture-based comments, and can even speak up about it. “Hopefully, through counseling and education, those with eating disorders will feel confident enough to correct others or know that those comments do not have to impact their own view of themselves and health,” De La Cruz says.

Additional support resources

There are an abundance of tools available to help support people with eating disorders. Here are some of my favorite resources:

Books

• How to Nourish Your Child Through an Eating Disorder
• By Their Side: A Resource for Caretakers and Loved Ones Facing an Eating Disorder
• Loving Someone with an Eating Disorder: Understanding, Supporting, and Connecting with Your Partner

Websites

• FEAST (Families Empowered and Supporting the Treatment of Eating Disorders)
• Your Recovery Resource
• Plate by Plate

Groups

• ANAD Caregiver or Sibling Support Group
• National Alliance for Eating Disorders Virtual Support for Loved Ones

Eating disorder recovery takes a village. If you’re struggling to support a loved one, reach out for professional and personalized guidance. The resources above are a great place to start, or you can connect with an Equip team member to talk through your concerns.