How do I help someone with an eating disorder?

There can be the assumption that when faced with an official diagnosis like anorexia or bulimia or binge eating, that it's best to leave everything to the professionals and to draw the conclusion that you should just worry and pray and provide moral support from a distance. I certainly want to reinforce the wisdom of getting professional help from someone who is experienced and wise and appropriately trained, but I also want to challenge the notion that friends and family should just surrender their active role in helping those who are struggling. While mental health conditions are indeed impairing and disruptive and sometimes strange, they don’t operate outside of everyday help and understanding.

For example, let me offer two statements about eating disorders that I think move it more into the realm of everyday problems and ordinary help. First statement: Eating disorders are liars. Second statement: Recovery requires truth. While this might not be mind-blowing stuff, it is accurate, and in its simplicity it opens the door for ordinary people to be practically helpful. Let me flesh out these statements a little bit more.

First, eating disorders are liars. Eating disorders “lie” to the person suffering from them. They distort reality and they deceive. It lies about how you look, what your value is, what people think about you, and how God feels about you. For example, it tells people they are overweight when they’re really underweight. It tells them that they are only valuable when they can control their food intake or manage their weight. It tells people that they are nothing without the purpose and the meaning that their eating disorder gives them. Eating disorders lie.

Second, recovery requires truth. If the power of eating disorders is in its deception and distortion, then the active ingredient of recovery is the presence of truth. In John 8:31–32, Jesus tells his followers that “if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” What is this truth that brings freedom to those suffering with an eating disorder? It’s the truth that their value and worth is secured in their union with Christ, not in their acceptance or their weight. It’s the truth that the strong arms of Christ are their safe and sure refuge, not the restriction of food or the right amount of exercise. It’s the truth that deep and lasting peace is found in a life of trust and surrender, not in perfection and control. Recovery requires truth.

These two statements inform how to help someone with an eating disorder. You help by reminding them of the battle that they’re in. You remind them that the enemy is a liar, and it lies about reality, about refuge, and about redemption. And you also help by reminding them that there is a true and better alternative found in the person and words of Christ. As Hebrews 12:24 proclaims, “the blood of Jesus speaks a better word.”

In conclusion, I’m not implying that a simple Bible verse will dislodge these entrenched and enslaving lies. Quite the opposite, actually. Change happens as biblical truth slowly takes hold and over time pushes out Satan’s lies. Therefore, the continuous faithful reminding of both the lies and the truth is how you help someone who struggles with an eating disorder.