The Connection Between Eating Disorders and Attachment Styles
Eating disorders are often misunderstood as being only about food, weight, or appearance. In reality, they are complex mental health conditions that are deeply connected to how we relate to ourselves and others. Research increasingly shows a strong link between eating disorders and attachment styles, particularly patterns formed in early relationships.
Understanding this connection can offer a more compassionate and holistic lens for both healing and recovery.
What Are Attachment Styles
Attachment styles develop in early childhood through our relationships with caregivers. When caregivers are emotionally available, responsive, and consistent, children are more likely to develop a secure attachment. This creates an internal sense of safety, worthiness, and the ability to regulate emotions.
When caregivers are inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, dismissive, or frightening, insecure attachment patterns can develop. These patterns often continue into adulthood and influence how we cope with stress, manage emotions, and seek support.
The most commonly discussed attachment styles include secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment.
Why Attachment Matters in Eating Disorders
Attachment styles shape how we experience emotions and how safe we feel depending on others. For many people with eating disorders, food related behaviors become a way to cope with emotional pain, unmet needs, or internal chaos.
Individuals with insecure attachment may struggle with emotional regulation and have difficulty soothing themselves during distress. Disordered eating behaviors can temporarily reduce anxiety, numb painful emotions, or create a sense of control when relationships feel overwhelming or unpredictable.
Over time, these behaviors can become deeply ingrained coping strategies rather than conscious choices.
Anxious Attachment and Eating Disorders
People with anxious attachment often experience intense fears of abandonment and rejection. They may be highly sensitive to perceived disconnection and rely heavily on external validation to feel secure.
In the context of eating disorders, this can show up as perfectionism, people pleasing, and harsh self criticism. Food restriction, binge eating, or purging may be used to manage overwhelming emotions or to feel worthy of care and acceptance.
Body image concerns can also become closely tied to self worth and the belief that being thin, controlled, or desirable will lead to safety in relationships.
Avoidant Attachment and Eating Disorders
Avoidant attachment is often associated with emotional distancing and self reliance. People with this attachment style may have learned early on that expressing needs or emotions was unsafe or ineffective.
Disordered eating can serve as a way to suppress emotions and maintain a sense of independence and control. Restrictive eating patterns are particularly common and may reflect an effort to disconnect from bodily needs and vulnerability.
There is often a strong emphasis on self control and a discomfort with receiving care or support from others.
Disorganized Attachment and Eating Disorders
Disorganized attachment is typically associated with early trauma, neglect, or frightening caregiving experiences. It involves conflicting impulses to seek closeness and push others away.
For individuals with disorganized attachment, eating behaviors may feel chaotic or unpredictable. They may alternate between restriction and binge eating or engage in impulsive behaviors alongside periods of intense control.
Food can become a way to manage overwhelming internal states when there is no consistent sense of safety or regulation.
Attachment, Shame, and the Body
Across attachment styles, shame plays a central role in eating disorders. When early relationships communicate that needs are too much or emotions are unsafe, individuals may internalize beliefs that they are flawed or unworthy.
The body can become the focus of this shame. Controlling food or weight may feel like a way to manage deeper feelings of inadequacy, fear, or emotional pain that were never named or soothed.
How Attachment Informed Therapy Supports Recovery
An attachment informed approach to eating disorder treatment goes beyond symptom management. It focuses on creating safety, trust, and emotional attunement within the therapeutic relationship.
Over time, therapy can help individuals develop new ways of relating to themselves and others. This includes learning how to identify emotions, tolerate distress, ask for support, and build a more compassionate relationship with the body.
Healing often involves grieving unmet needs from the past while developing a stronger sense of agency and self trust in the present.
Moving Toward Healing
Eating disorders are not a failure of willpower. They are often adaptive responses to relational and emotional environments that did not feel safe or supportive enough.
Understanding the role of attachment can reduce shame and open the door to deeper healing. With the right support, it is possible to build emotional resilience, develop more secure connections, and relate to food and the body in a way that feels more nourishing and sustainable.
If you are struggling with disordered eating, working with a therapist who understands attachment and trauma can be an important step toward recovery.
Take the first step today. Reach out to schedule a consultation and start building a healthier relationship with yourself, your body, and your emotions.
About Moha and Eating Disorder Counselling
Hi, I’m Moha. I am a trauma-informed therapist who specializes in working with eating disorders and body image. We live in a world that is saturated with messages about what our bodies are supposed to look like. We are told that if we look a certain way, we can finally be “enough”. As someone with lived experience of an eating disorder, I know all too well that it is never just about food; rather it is about wanting to feel loved and safe, wanting to control something in an otherwise chaotic world, or wanting to finally feel like you are enough.
Before I was a therapist, I volunteered at the Looking Glass Foundation for Eating Disorders. Here, I directly connected with individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and sexual orientations, and learned that while our journeys may look different, our core struggles remain the need. We all want to feel seen and secure. Whether you’re wanting to make peace with food, finally giving up on dieting, or learning to accept yourself as you are, I promise to take this path together with you. From someone who has been there, recovery is possible.
I also acknowledge that we live in a fatphobic world. Intersecting identities and systems of oppression can make it even more challenging to focus on recovery for folks of colour who are in larger bodies. Together, we will equip you with tools to take care of yourself, and continue to live your life to the fullest. I operate from a Health-At-Every-Size, fat-positive, and body-neutral lens.
I offer a free 15-minute consultation to answer any questions about my process and to see if we might be a good fit!
