Eating disorders can affect anyone of any size.  They can affect any gender, lifestyle, or age.  They typically start with well intended dieting and can quickly (although sometimes slowly) snowball into a diagnosable illness. Regardless of whether you dieted or not, eating disorders involve preoccupation with food, body weight, shape, and size.  Those struggling typically experience low mood, anxiety, low self-worth and self-esteem. Along with this, individual with disordered eating may find themselves using ways to control what they have eaten through restricting what they eat, vomiting, and so on.  Often, these behaviours lead to binge eating, which can be described as eating a large amount of any food, in a short amount of time, feeling out of control doing so, and feeling guilty and embarrassed by this.  Individuals who struggle with binging often feel so much shame and guilt that this keeps them from reaching out for help.