Special Education

Teaching Students with Mental Health Disorders:
Resources for Teachers: Volume 1 - Eating Disorders

Characteristics of Students with Eating Disorders

While there are a number of different kinds of eating disorders, this document will focus on three that stand out because of their prevalence and severity: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder.

This section presents a general description of each disorder, followed by a list of specific “indicators” a student may display. These indicators can help teachers to recognize the symptoms, but are not provided for diagnostic purposes. Eating disorders are medical conditions that must be diagnosed by physicians and mental health professionals.

The indicators are organized into four domains: behavioural, cognitive, affective and physical. These are the “warning signs” that may draw a teacher’s attention to a potential eating disorder and that provide a framework for understanding the day-to-day challenges faced by students with eating disorders. This understanding helps teachers to support treatment plans designed by health professionals, as far as these plans might affect the classroom, and provides educators with enough information to have a meaningful discussion with parents, physicians, counsellors and others. While teachers should not assume the role of medical diagnosticians, they are in an excellent position to observe and keep notes about warning signs and forward their concerns to the appropriate professionals.

Behavioural indicators are:
  • the kinds of behaviours typical of a student with an eating disorder, and
  • the indicators most likely to be noticed by a teacher because they are often clearly evident and require only skilled observation.

Cognitive indicators are:

  • messages the student might communicate that give an indication of internal thought processes,
  • comments heard directly from a student or overheard in student conversations, and
  • indicators a teacher may find more difficult to recognize since they require a certain amount of interpretive skill and often emerge only in therapy.

Affective indicators are:

  • emotional signs which, on their own, may signify nothing more than typical adolescent emotions but, when taken in combination with other indicators, may heighten a teacher’s concerns,
  • emotional indicators that teachers should discuss with a school counsellor to determine their significance, and
  • very difficult to detect because they require a high level of interpretive skills.

Physical indicators:

  • provide some of the best evidence of the presence of an eating disorder,
  • require a high degree of contact with the student to be identified. Teachers usually do not have a sufficient level of contact to make this identification, and
  • are more properly explored by a parent, doctor or other trained professional.
Understanding the "warning signs" helps teachers to support treatment plans designed by health professionals.