In many girls with eating disorders, the lowering of body weight and body fat levels from self-starvation can arrest the menstrual cycle and delay other body changes that come with puberty. Girls who lose their period essentially return to a more childlike state, both physically and psychologically. They neither feel nor look like adolescent or young adult women, and, therefore, can postpone making the transition to adolescence or young adulthood.

Family problems. Some individuals with eating disorders come from disordered families. The families of anorexic patients are often characterized by extremely controlling parents and poor boundaries between the parents and the child. For many of these individuals, anorexia is a misguided, but understandable, attempt at differentiating themselves from their parents. Put another way, some anorexics feel their control over their eating is the first thing in their lives that they have done that was truly "their own idea."

In contrast, individuals who struggle with bulimia often come from families where there is disconnection among the family members. For these individuals, bulimia can be a desperate attempt to draw attention to themselves, or an effort to compensate for -- or numb or distract themselves from -- the feelings of emptiness related to the disconnection.

Social problems. Most people who develop eating disorders report having painfully low self-esteem before the onset of their eating problems. Many patients describe going through a painful experience such as being teased about their appearance, being shunned, or going through a difficult break-up of a romantic relationship. They begin to believe that these things happened because they were fat, and that if they become thin, it would protect them from similar experiences.