Editor’s note: This article contains references to eating disorders and trauma.

As we enter National Eating Disorder Awareness month, NC State is launching several events, including “Trash Your Insecurities” and “Love Your Mirror” to highlight its message “all bodies are good bodies,” according to the University’s prevention services website. While these events may be an effective way to promote body positivity, the University — along with many Americans — seems to overlook the bigger picture: Eating disorders are much more than a body image issue.

We’re quick to blame social media for causing insecurities, but there are other factors that need to be addressed. There are biological and physiological components that most of us don’t focus on.

Eating disorders can be about control and negative life experiences. Several studies have shown that people with OCD are more likely to have an eating disorder. Sexual and physical abuse, along with neglect, also increase the risk for disordered eating behaviors.

Similarly, research shows eating disorders may be associated with abnormal serotonin levels. Even a family history of eating disorders can increase risk in adolescents for developing disordered behaviors.

Yes, Instagram models and TikTok influencers aren’t helping the situation by setting unrealistic standards, but eating disorders are a multifactorial illness, and we’re currently failing to discuss any of the other factors.

In many eating disorders, there’s an underlying problem that needs to be uncovered, whether that’s body dysmorphia, trauma or something else. Finding the root cause can be an important part of recovery.

Not only are there factors contributing to eating disorders that are overlooked, but there are also different kinds of eating disorders that are overlooked. We too often reduce eating disorders to anorexia, but they take many forms.

When you think of eating disorders, what comes to mind? Most people probably think of anorexia and bulimia, two of the most common eating disorders, but these are only the beginning. There are many other types, along with disordered behaviors that don’t fit into a particular category.

For example, binge eating disorder involves uncontrollable eating and is the most common eating disorder in America. It’s three times more common than anorexia and bulimia combined. 

In most cases, you can’t tell someone has an eating disorder by looking at them, and this is part of what makes the illness so severe. You never know if someone is suffering.

A focus on clean eating could seem harmless, but when taken to the extreme, this can develop into orthorexia, which is characterized by the excessive desire to consume healthy foods. Orthorexia is not formally recognized as an eating disorder by the American Psychological Association, but the National Eating Disorders Association says it has many of the same physical health consequences as anorexia.

Similarly, Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorders have severe and unhealthy consequences just like more well-known eating disorders. Purging disorder, for example, lies under the category of OSFED. This risky practice involves participation in purging behaviors in the absence of binge eating.

We need to expand the conversation about eating disorders. Binge eating disorder, orthorexia, OSFED —  why aren’t we talking about these illnesses?

Even more concerning is that discussing male eating disorders seems to be avoided altogether.

Men are less likely to be diagnosed with and seek treatment for their disorder, but the National Eating Disorders Association reports that one in three people with an eating disorder is male. Men are at a higher risk of dying from anorexia because many people assume men don’t have eating disorders.

We need to stop thinking that only women have eating disorders. Eating disorders don’t discriminate, and neither should we.

It’s time to dive deeper into solving the eating disorder crisis. There’s so much more to eating disorders than young women obsessed with body image, and until we realize this, we won’t make any progress.

NC State has several online resources along with counseling available for those struggling with eating disorders. Additionally, if you’re concerned about someone, you can submit a CARES referral through the Prevention Services website.