Examples Of Compensatory Behavior In Eating Disorders
Eating disorders vary in the symptoms they cause and the consequences they can bring, but nearly all of them seem to have one thing in common: the desire to compensate or "make up" for something. In many cases, this something is the intake of food. Because compensatory behaviors are generally rooted in anxiety and a desire for control, they can easily spiral into something that poses a serious risk to your health. In this article, we'll discuss common compensatory behaviors caused by eating disorders and outline what you can do to stop them.
What are eating disorder compensatory behaviors?
The goal of compensatory behavior is to make up for an act you don't feel good about. An example not related to eating disorders might be doing something nice for a partner after snapping at them; a bouquet of flowers, in this case, acts as a way to compensate for something you did and alleviate the guilt you might feel for losing your patience.
What conditions might lead to these behaviors?
Any eating disorder can lead to compensatory behaviors. The most common are likely bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. However, just about anyone with an unhealthy relationship with food and body image may engage in compensatory behaviors.
In a way, many behaviors that characterize eating disorders are, by nature, compensatory. A person with anorexia may severely restrict their food intake to make up for their perceived excess weight. A person with bulimia may purge after a binge or eating in general to make up for calories consumed. The desire to manipulate what we eat and why is often deeply rooted in the belief that an individual has to work to be considered worthy, valid, or loveable.
Understanding these behaviors for what they are and being able to identify them can help us better support those with eating disorders. If you have an eating disorder, it may be beneficial to be able to recognize these tendencies, as many of them pose significant risks to mental and physical health.
Some of the most common compensatory behaviors
Compensatory behaviors can look different depending on the eating disorder in question and the individual themselves. The frequency and severity of these actions will vary from person to person. Some of the most common compensatory behaviors are described below.
Food restriction
Food restriction is most common in anorexia but can present in all forms of disordered eating. It could manifest in many different ways. A person might have a small group of foods they eat, such as low-calorie foods only. It could also be a cycle for some; a period of eating normally or excessively may be followed by a period of food restriction to make up for calories consumed.
Purging
Purging is perhaps the most common form of compensatory behavior for bulimia. It literally rids the body of the food consumed. As mentioned above, this does not have to occur after binging. It could happen after a typical meal or snack. The goal is to get rid of the food, often because of a perception that failing to do so will lead to unwanted consequences (like weight gain). The other goal is retaining control and feeling relief from anxiety, and purging achieves that.
Some people who do not have an official eating disorder but are struggling with body image may purge from time to time. They might do it if they eat a big or high-calorie meal to make up for getting off their diet plan. Some individuals with anorexia purge from time to time, too. In fact, experts recognize purging behavior as a subtype of anorexia nervosa; those with this condition may purge in addition to restricting their food intake.
Excessive exercise
While exercise is generally healthy, when it is done to compensate for eating or in excess, things can quickly take a turn for the worst. The reason this is a compensatory behavior is because the goal is to burn off calories from eating and prevent weight gain. Typically, when exercise is a compensatory behavior, the person will exercise for hours and beyond what most people consider typical, such as running on the treadmill for hours at a time.
How much exercise is excessive? This answer will likely be different for everyone, but in general, when a person "has" to exercise or their other activities and obligations are secondary to exercising, it is likely compulsive. Unless someone is training for an event or has another reason, exercising for hours a day and every single day of the week is generally considered excessive. If a person exercises despite injury or illness, something bigger may be going on.
Fasting
Fasting is something that people do for many different reasons. Some religions require fasting on holy days because it is thought that doing so makes you more pious or puts you more in touch with a particular deity.
It can also be a compensatory behavior in eating disorders. The reason is that the fasting time can make up for a regular day of eating, or it can prepare the body for eating later. For example, someone who fasts as a compensatory behavior may feel less anxious eating dinner in the evening because they have fasted all day. Or someone who has binged the previous day might feel like fasting the next day makes up for the extra calories.
Seeking professional help
If you have an eating disorder or know someone who does, you may be no stranger to compensatory behaviors. Though they often serve to lessen feelings of anxiety in the moment, their long-term consequences can be significant. That's why it can be so vital to seek help if you or someone you know is exhibiting signs of this sort of behavior.
Professional mental healthcare can be important in terms of building a healthy relationship with food, cultivating a realistic body image, and challenging negative thoughts. You may find that online therapy makes it easier to find a professional who has experience working with patients with eating disorders. In addition to having a wide range of providers to choose from, you can take advantage of online therapy's convenience; all you need to receive care is an internet connection.
Working with a therapist online can significantly improve your symptoms, too. One review of studies analyzing the effectiveness of online cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) found that web-based treatment options led to a significant decrease in symptoms of anxiety and depression. Even if your eating disorder isn't related to another mental health disorder, the symptoms you're experiencing can likely be improved through online therapy.
Takeaway
What is compensatory behavior?
Compensatory behaviors are actions taken in an attempt to correct or “make up for'' a perceived failure, deficiency, or mistake. People with eating disorders may engage in these behaviors after doing something that they believe could cause weight gain.
These individuals may have strong fears about gaining weight, as well as low self-esteem linked to their perception of their physical appearance. They may also feel a strong need to exert control over their eating behaviors. As a result, their self-images may be threatened by consuming more food than intended. Compensatory behaviors may serve as unhealthy coping strategies in the face of this damage to their self-concepts.
Severe, unhealthy compensatory behaviors are most characteristically associated with bulimia nervosa (BN), though they can also occur in other eating disorders. The primary difference between bulimia and binge eating disorder (BED) is that in BN, individuals typically attempt to “compensate” for episodes of overeating with intense and often dangerous weight loss strategies.
What are examples of compensatory behaviors?
The National Eating Disorders Association lists several common compensatory eating disorder behaviors, including:
- Self-induced vomiting
- Misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or other medications that could cause weight loss
- Excessive exercise or physical activity
- Fasting (prolonged food restriction)
According to a 2012 paper by E. Colleen Stiles-Shields, Andrea Goldschmidt, and several colleagues, compensatory behaviors may be important for assessing eating disorder severity. Their study found that children and adolescents who engaged in multiple compensatory behaviors also reported more eating disorder beliefs and thoughts on average. These individuals also demonstrated lower self-esteem and worse functioning in daily life.
What are compensatory activities?
Compensatory activities can refer to any actions that people use to make up for negative emotions, thoughts, or behaviors. Not all of them are necessarily unhealthy. For example, a person who feels insecure about their intelligence might study harder as a result, leading to better educational outcomes. Some forms of self-care could also be considered means of compensation for stress or unhappiness.
However, some compensatory activities may do more harm than good, either because they’re dangerous or because they reinforce negative patterns of thought and behavior. Disordered eating behaviors such as fasting in anorexia or overeating in BED can be examples of destructive compensatory activities.
What does compensation mean in mental health?
“Compensation” can have multiple meanings in mental health contexts. The American Psychological Association offers several definitions for the term:
- Building up strengths or skills in one area of life to make up for real or perceived deficiencies in others.
- Using new brain areas to perform mental tasks that were formerly handled by regions that have been damaged or impaired.
- A marker of cognitive development within Jean Piaget’s theories, involving the ability to understand that changes in one area can be offset by changes in another (for example, recognizing that the amount of water in a tall and skinny jar remains the same when poured into a short and wide one).
What is the meaning of emotional compensation?
Emotional compensation can sometimes refer to a kind of non-monetary incentive that may contribute to employee engagement and retention. The idea is that if people feel good about their work, co-workers, and workplace environment, they may be less likely to leave for another job — even one that pays more.
Another definition of emotional compensation as a psychological phenomenon was proposed by Amit Goldenberg and colleagues in a 2017 paper in the Journal of Emotional Psychology. This type of compensation refers to the way that one partner in a relationship may adjust their emotional responses to “make up for” the other person’s perceived underreaction or overreaction. The study showed that this tendency may be associated with positive relationship quality.
What are compensatory strategies in CBT?
In cognitive-behavioral theory, compensatory strategies can be understood as repeated behaviors that a person uses to “make up for” things about themselves that they believe are weak or lacking. One possible example could be seen in someone who sees themselves as unlovable. They might respond with a compensatory strategy of overly intense attachment toward new romantic partners, attempting to force a stronger bond at an inappropriately early stage of the relationship.
Since these strategies are based on distorted beliefs, they’re often unhelpful. In fact, they can serve to reinforce unhealthy states of mind. In the example given above, a person’s overly affectionate and intimate behavior at the beginning of a relationship might drive away potential partners. This could wind up strengthening the individual’s belief that they can’t find love.
This type of compensatory strategy may play a major role in the development of eating disorders. People with a poor self-image may believe that they’re physically unattractive, or that they would be happier and better-liked if they were better-looking. These individuals may then end up engaging in extreme attempts at weight loss to compensate for their low self-esteem.
What is the difference between compensatory and adaptive?
In the field of occupational therapy, compensatory and adaptive techniques can refer to two different ways to help someone cope with a loss of physical or cognitive function.
Compensatory techniques typically focus on teaching the person to use a healthy function to supplement one that’s impaired. For instance, an individual whose spatial memory was disrupted by a brain injury might practice memorizing verbal directions to familiar places. An adaptive technique often involves modifying the person’s environment to make tasks easier, such as placing labels around the house to help someone with impaired object-recognition ability.
These examples of compensation are very different from the compensatory behaviors seen in eating disorders. A person with eating disorder symptoms is usually attempting to “fix” a false negative image of themselves rather than a genuine deficiency.
What are compensatory strategies for schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders can involve significant deficits in certain kinds of cognitive skills, such as decision-making, planning, and memory. Compensatory strategies for these disorders can involve teaching a patient skills to help them function despite these difficulties. Assistive technologies or help from third parties may also serve as compensatory strategies. Examples include:
- Using checklists or calendars to aid in organization
- Practicing self-talk to stay on track during complex tasks
- Breaking up information or activities into smaller chunks
- Reminders and coaching from therapists
- Scheduling alarms or notifications as prompts for tasks
Again, this type of “compensation” has little or nothing to do with the compensatory behaviors seen in many eating disorders.
What are compensatory beliefs?
Researchers studying health-related behaviors define compensatory beliefs as beliefs in the possibility of “canceling out” unhealthy behaviors with subsequent healthy actions. This may function to relieve the cognitive dissonance between two opposing drives — for example, the desire to avoid excess sugar and the urge to eat a piece of cake. A person might attempt to resolve this mental tension by eating the cake and promising themselves that they’ll eat a salad later.
A similar psychological process may be involved in the development of compensatory behaviors in bulimia and other eating disorders. An individual with one of these conditions may have a strong desire to lose or maintain weight, but also a strong impulse to binge eat as a form of emotional relief. The use of compensatory behaviors like excessive exercise might be an attempt to resolve the disconnect between these urges.
What is the compensatory function in psychology?
In psychology theory and research, something can be said to have a compensatory function when it serves to relieve negative feelings caused by another action or belief. This can apply to actions (like buying a gift for your spouse after insulting them in an argument) or beliefs (like deciding that a panhandler is probably attempting to scam you to relieve guilt).
Eating disorder behaviors like self-induced vomiting or fasting may serve a compensatory function. They may be attempts to alleviate a negative self-image or a felt lack of control.
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