eating disorder

American  

noun

eating disorders plural

1. any of various disorders, as anorexia nervosa or bulimia, characterized by severe disturbances in eating habits.

---

eating disorder Scientific  

/ ē′tĭng /

1. Any of several patterns of severely disturbed eating behavior, especially anorexia nervosa and bulimia, seen mainly in female teenagers and young women.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• eating disorders
  plural

Etymology

Origin of eating disorder

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

eating disorder

This January, she stopped the injections and began going to eating disorder treatment several times a week.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

Recently, Nagata had a patient who was hospitalized for an eating disorder and the patient showed him all the drugs and supplements he learned about from social media and was taking for various appearance-related things.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026

She also testified that her older sister suffered from an eating disorder — details the defense sought to portray as the source of her body dysmorphia.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 27, 2026

Daniel Magson, CEO of Derby-based eating disorder charity First Steps ED, says Emma's experience reflects a trend it is increasingly alarmed by.

From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2026

Zander is sometimes depressed, too, and Annabelle herself is anxious, and Sierra is edging toward an eating disorder, and those are only the things she knows for sure.

From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti