Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2025
Every year, during Eating Disorders Awareness Week organisation 'Beat Eating Disorders' raise awareness of these complex mental health conditions by highlighting a specific topic.
This year, we're talking about how eating disorders can affect anyone.
Right now, at least 1.25 million people in the UK are living with an eating disorder. That’s more than 1 in 50 people – but the real number could be even higher.
Eating disorders like ARFID, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder and OSFED are complex mental health conditions which are often misunderstood, mislabelled or undiagnosed which can prevent people from reaching out for help.
Eating disorders don’t just affect the person with the condition, friends and family often become carers – feeling helpless and heartbroken, as they watch their loved one struggle. Eating disorders are one of the biggest mental health challenges of our time and they can affect anyone at any time.
We ran a survey in December and January to gather lived experiences of eating disorders.
Beat Eating Disorders key findings:
1900 people took part in total finding that among the respondents:
- 4 in 5 (1128/1370) have experienced misconceptions from others about their eating disorder.
- 4 in 5 (1082/1360) thought that greater public awareness would make them feel more comfortable to talk about their eating disorder.
- 2 in 3 (749/1131) would not feel comfortable talking to a teacher about their eating disorder.
- 2 in 3 (670/1031) would not feel comfortable talking to their line manager about their eating disorder.
- 2 in 3 (837/1328) would not feel comfortable talking to a colleague about their eating disorder.
Eating disorders are so much more than just food. A lot of the time they are coping mechanisms for broader and complex issues a person is facing. Person with lived experience.
