When Eating Difficulties Are About Identity, Not Food

Understanding what sits beneath eating difficulties

This article is for adults who feel their eating difficulties are tied to identity, belonging, and nervous-system overwhelm — and who are tired of being offered one-dimensional explanations.

Many people come to therapy asking the same question:

“What is the root cause of my eating difficulties?”

It’s an understandable question, especially if you’ve spent years trying to fix, manage, or control your relationship with food. But eating distress rarely has a single cause. Instead, it often emerges from a complex, interweaving web of biology, identity, neurodiversity, trauma, culture, and environment.

We are not binary systems or machines that can be “solved”. We are shaped by both nature and nurture, by our nervous systems, our relationships, and the worlds we’ve had to adapt to.

When the search for answers becomes part of the problem

For many years, I believed that if I could just identify the one cause of my binge eating, I would finally be “fixed”.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that my:

• black-and-white thinking

• rigid, perfectionistic problem-solving

• relentless search for certainty

  
  

were not solutions, they were part of the same coping system.

That drive to understand everything intellectually had quietly pulled attention away from what was actually happening underneath: unprocessed emotions, sensory overwhelm, identity confusion, and a nervous system that didn’t feel safe or settled.

Identity, neurodiversity, and eating distress

For many people, eating distress is deeply connected to identity.

This might include:

• difficulties understanding or expressing sexual identity

• uncertainty about gender or place on the gender spectrum

• discovering neurodivergence later in life (such as ADHD or autism)

• realising you function best in inclusive, non-normative environments

• feeling “too sensitive”, “too much”, or out of sync with mainstream expectations

  
  

Many people I work with eventually recognise themselves as highly sensitive, with specific sensory needs and a nervous system that struggles under constant pressure to conform.

Eating behaviours can then become a way to:

• regulate overwhelm

• create predictability

• numb or disconnect from painful feelings

• generate dopamine or relief in an otherwise overstimulating world

  
  

Culture, genetics, and the body

Eating distress also does not exist in a vacuum.

Many of us grew up in intense diet culture, particularly those of us raised in the late 90s and early 2000s. Thin ideals, moralised food rules, and appearance-based worth were everywhere.

There is also a significant genetic component to eating difficulties. Research suggests that up to 80% of eating disorders have a genetic contribution. Sensitivity, emotional intensity, and reward processing differences often run in families.

None of this means you are broken. It means your system adapted in the best way it could with the resources it had at the time.

“You sound like me a few years ago…”

The people who often find their way to my work tend to recognise themselves in some of the following:

• feeling “othered” or out of place in society

• struggling to work out who you are beyond roles, achievement, or productivity

• using food, restriction, or compensatory behaviours to manage feelings

• seeking clarity through diagnoses (such as ADHD, autism, OCD, CPTSD, or others)

• having had previous therapy that helped partially, but not fully

• longing for a clear explanation for eating difficulties

• appearing outwardly “high functioning” while feeling internally overwhelmed

• questioning where you sit in relation to gender or sexuality

  
  

For many, eating distress becomes the language through which deeper identity and nervous-system issues express themselves.

Why identity and eating are inseparable

There is a profound intersection between identity and eating.

Food is:

• sensory

• relational

• cultural

• embodied

  
  

When identity feels unsafe, unseen, or constrained, eating often becomes one of the few available ways to regulate, express, or contain distress.

Exploring what sits underneath eating patterns takes time. It is rarely a quick fix.

For some people, CBT or CBT-E helps build structure, reduce symptoms, and stabilise eating patterns. For others — particularly neurodivergent clients — CBT may need adapting to account for sensory needs, rigid thinking styles, and nervous-system differences.

EMDR can be helpful where eating distress is closely linked to trauma, shame, or frozen emotional material — but only when safety and stability are in place first.

Sometimes the work begins with:

• identity exploration

• understanding sensory and physiological needs

• restoring regular nourishment

• building nervous-system safety

  
  

before any trauma processing takes place.

How I work

I work from an eating-distress and nervous-system-informed framework, integrating:

• Adapted CBT

• EMDR (when appropriate)

• Neurodiversity-affirming practice

• Identity-sensitive therapy

  
  

I remain fully able to assess and diagnose eating disorders where required for NHS pathways, insurance, or multidisciplinary communication, but diagnosis alone is never the whole story.

About the author

Becky Grace is a BABCP-accredited CBT and EMDR therapist specialising in eating disorders, neurodiversity, OCD, and complex trauma. She works with adults whose eating difficulties are intertwined with identity, sensory sensitivity, and nervous-system overwhelm, and offers in-person therapy in Norwich alongside UK and international online therapy.

Booking therapy: a clear 2-step process

If you’re considering therapy, working together begins with a clear, structured process.

Step 1: Paid clarity call (including suitability assessment) A focused therapeutic consultation to explore what you’re seeking support for and whether my approach is appropriate at this stage.

Step 2: Therapy begins If we decide to proceed, we agree a therapy plan. This may involve weekly sessions, structured therapy blocks, or focused intensives, depending on your needs and circumstances.

You can view availability and book via my client portal here:👉 https://clientportal.uk.zandahealth.com/clientportal/beckygracetherapy

Further information about fees, location, and ways of working is available at:👉 www.beckygracetherapy.co.uk

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