What it's like to be middle-aged and have an eating disorder

Eating disorders are commonly associated with teenage girls. But the onset of perimenopause can be a trigger for some women 

Dr Art Malone: "The longer you’ve been dealing with an eating disorder, the more it’s ingrained in your brain, in your daily habits, and your internal psychology.” 

Eating disorders are generally associated with teenage girls and those in their early 20s. However, they are not unique to this age group; women also experience eating disorders in midlife.  

“It’s not so much that women are developing an eating disorder in middle age, it’s more the case that midlife women with an eating disorder likely have a long history of having, at the very least, disordered eating, or more commonly, a long-standing eating disorder going back to adolescence. But with 5% of middle-aged women experiencing this, it is what we consider fairly common,” says Dr Art Malone, consultant psychiatrist with the HSE Adult Eating Disorder Service at St Vincent’s University Hospital.