Making room for connection: Eating disorders and loneliness

This Loneliness Awareness Week (3 to 9 August 2026), Australians are being asked to ‘Make Room for Connection’. It is a timely invitation for the eating disorder sector, because loneliness is rarely a side note to an eating disorder. Loneliness is not simply being alone; it is the distressing feeling that the connections we have fall short of the connections we need. Importantly, loneliness is different from social isolation. A person can feel profoundly lonely even when surrounded by others, just as someone who spends time alone may still feel deeply connected.  For many people experiencing an eating disorder, that feeling is woven through the illness itself, shaping how it develops, how it persists and how recovery unfolds. 

Research consistently highlights the correlation and relationship between eating disorders and loneliness. A multi-centre study of 230 people receiving eating disorder treatment found that loneliness was associated with more severe eating disorder symptoms and poorer quality of life across diagnoses (Meneguzzo et al., 2024). Longitudinal research following young people from early adolescence into adulthood shows the relationship runs in both directions: loneliness can precede and predict disordered eating, and disordered eating in turn predicts later loneliness (Cortés-García et al., 2022). Loneliness may also help explain how earlier adversity does its damage. A recent study found that loneliness partially mediated the relationship between childhood trauma and eating disorder severity, suggesting that disconnection is one of the pathways through which difficult early experiences shape illness (Meneguzzo et al., 2024). 

People with lived experience describe how these two experiences feed each other. Because food sits at the centre of social life, shame and secrecy can lead people to step back from shared meals, celebrations and everyday gatherings, and that withdrawal deepens the very isolation that fuels the illness (Center for Discovery, 2019). In a first-person account published in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, loneliness is described as both a driver of the eating disorder and one of its most painful consequences: the illness can feel like a constant companion while it quietly crowds out real relationships (Grech, Azzopardi & Borg, 2024). Families and friends often feel this distance too, watching someone they love become harder to reach. 

The encouraging news is that the same evidence points to connection as protective. Studies consistently find that supportive relationships, whether with family, friends, peers or treatment providers, are associated with reduced symptoms and stronger recovery, and researchers are now calling for loneliness to be addressed directly within eating disorder prevention and treatment rather than left as an afterthought. Recovery is possible, and connection can make a meaningful difference. 

What you can do this week 

Make room for connection, deliberately. Check in on someone who has gone quiet. Extend an invitation, and extend it again, gently, if it is declined; for someone experiencing an eating disorder, social situations involving food can be hard, and knowing the door is still open matters more than a perfect RSVP. If you are feeling the weight of loneliness yourself, reaching out to one person, one service or one community is a meaningful act of connection. You do not have to face it alone. 

If you or someone you care about is experiencing an eating disorder or body image concerns, support is available. Contact the Butterfly National Helpline on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673) or connect by webchat or email via butterfly.org.au, 8am to midnight (AET), excluding national public holidays. 

References 

Cortés-García, L., Rodríguez-Cano, R., & von Soest, T. (2022). Prospective associations between loneliness and disordered eating from early adolescence to adulthood. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 55(12), 1678–1689. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10087379/ 

Grech, P., Azzopardi, A., & Borg, S. (2024). An account of loneliness while living with an eating disorder. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 31(2), 127–132. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jpm.12967 

Center for Discovery. (2019). Loneliness and eating disorders. https://centerfordiscovery.com/blog/loneliness-eating-disorders/ 

Meneguzzo, P., Marzotto, A., Mezzani, B., Conti, F., Maggi, L., & Todisco, P. (2024). Bridging trauma and eating disorders: The role of loneliness. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, 1500740. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1500740/full 

Meneguzzo, P., Terlizzi, S., Maggi, L., & Todisco, P. (2024). The loneliness factor in eating disorders: Implications for psychopathology and biological signatures. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 132, 152493. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010440X24000440