Going Back to School with an Eating Disorder: How to Maintain Recovery

Written by CCTC Staff Writer

Whether you (or your child) is going back to school in person or to a blended learning classroom, going back to school with an eating disorder is really difficult. The changes that come with school, along with any changes from the previous years that you're still adjusting to, are all hard to cope with.

In light of these difficulties, this post will:

Highlight some of the challenges you (or your child) might run into during back to school season
Offer strategies to cope with the school environment
Give tips for how to cope with any changes, such as weight or fashion changes, that you went through over the summer, or even farther back if you haven't gone to school physically at any point in 2020

While the challenges for students at different grade levels will struggle with different challenges, most of these tips for how to go back to school with an eating disorder and maintain your recovery apply to all students.

Related: Parents, this is how to talk to your child about eating disorders.

Challenges with Going Back to School In PersoLack of Constant Access to a Variety of Foods

Lack of Constant Access to a Variety of Foods

Over the summer, and all throughout the 2020-2021 school year, most students had access to their entire pantry the majority of the time.

If you wanted lunch at a certain time, or decided to change your snack, you could easily do so.

But when you're in a physical classroom, you can only access what you bring to school with you, and what your school offers for breakfast and lunch (if they do offer meals.) And in the physical classroom, it's much more difficult to eat whenever you feel hungry. In some classrooms, especially with COVID-19 precautions in place, you're not allowed to eat.

For students with an eating disorder, this creates anxiety around:

Packing the "right foods" for the school day

Forgetting to bring packed food
Whether you have enough food to fuel your body for several hours outside of your home
Having enough time to eat breakfast and lunch in a specific window of time (like a forty-five minute lunch period)
The ability to eat intuitively throughout the day (or meet a meal plan, if you are on one)

Physical Body Changes

If you gained weight throughout the pandemic (which is incredibly normal), it can be hard to see other people. Your peers may have associated you with "thinness", and coming back to school with a healthy recovery body can feel like a loss of identity.

But most people with an eating disorder are straight-sized or clinically overweight. 94% of eating disorder sufferers are, in fact. So if you recover into a larger body — one that is healthy for you — you may even face weight bias or stigma when you go back to school. Other students may judge you harshly for building a healthy relationship with your body, which is absolutely absurd, but difficult nonetheless.

Related: This is why everyone with a restrictive eating disorder needs to gain weight in recovery, not just those below a certain BMI.

Comparison to Peers

Body comparison is almost inevitable for people with bad body image, especially after such a long time where you haven't seen many people.

If you are in the depths of your disorder now, you may compare your body to those around you and feel either a sense of pride for losing weight in an unhealthy way, or a sense of disgust because you have "gained too much" or haven't "lost enough." Both are problematic responses to seeing your peers in person, and can often keep you stuck in your disorder.

If you are going to school in eating disorder recovery, then body comparison has the potential to cause a slip, lapse, or even a relapse in recovery.

There's also food comparison to consider. If your peers are eating less or different kinds of foods than you are, it can be hard to convince yourself that you need an adequate amount of food throughout the day. And if you are eating less than them, your eating disorder can sneak back in and encourage you to restrict even more.

Shifting Sleep Schedule

A regular sleep schedule is crucial for regulating mood and eating patterns. Shifting to an earlier wake up time (which is not natural for a lot of students on a biological level) can throw off an intuitive eating practice, cause mood swings, and increase hunger when you don't get enough sleep.

Academic Pressures

Many people who suffer from an eating disorder have perfectionistic personality traits. They also fixate on numbers and "quantifiable" measurements of "progress," which is why so many sufferers end up counting calories, tracking the amount of exercise they get, becoming obsessed with scales, and more.

Classes are almost built for the perfectionist fixated on numbers. From class tests to standardized tests to GPA, school systems tie success to numbers and performance, rather than fostering curiosity, creativity, and long-term information retention.

The academic pressure builds, and many students may turn to eating disorder behaviors in order to cope with stress, or as a way of feeling successful if their classes aren't going well.

Social Anxiety

After mass pandemic closures, even a student with no previous problems with being around people will most likely struggle to be back to school in person.

A lot of people with an eating disorder had social anxiety even before closures.

Going back to school after so long may cause feelings of loneliness and isolation — which eating disorders flourish in.

How to Cope with an Eating Disorder When You Go Back to School

1. Prepare for meals in advance.

Some students prefer to pack food from home to have at school. Others may not want to (or they may be unable to) take food to school every day.

If you have the ability to eat food from home for breakfast and lunch, consider doing so. That way, you'll always have something you'll definitely eat and it will be easier to keep up with a regular meal schedule.

Pack your lunch the night before. If you have a hard time remembering to pack your lunch or take it with you, write reminders to yourself. Stick one on your bedroom door to remind yourself to pack your lunch, and another one on the front door to remind yourself to take it with you.

If you plan on eating breakfast at school or at a dining hall, make sure to leave home with enough time to sit down and eat in the morning.

And make sure to schedule enough time for lunch in your school day.

2. Carry snacks with you.

Carry a variety of nutritious snacks that you genuinely enjoy so you can honor your hunger throughout the school day.

3. Bring/use coping skills while in school.

Bring along objects that soothe you or make you feel safe in stressful situations: thinking putty or other sensory objects, a coloring book, a journal, or whatever feels helpful.

In cases where your self-soothing objects aren't available, use grounding techniques to calm you down when you feel anxious, upset, or distressed.

4. Try to maintain a regular schedule.

While it's difficult to stick to a schedule while still maintaining some level of flexibility (mental flexibility is good for recovery), a schedule has it's place, especially during the school year.

Set alarms to remind you to:

Wake up on time
Eat/pack breakfast and lunch
Take any and all medications
Start winding down before bed
Go to classes (remote or in-person)
Do upcoming assignments and study for exams
Loosely plan out your day

Consider getting an app or paper planner to help you manage all this. Just make sure your planning system works for you. Don't buy or install a planner that you won't use — if writing down a to-do list on a loose leaf sheet of paper works for you, stick to it.

5. Try to find some supports at school.

Identify a few peers who you are comfortable eating and generally being yourself around. If they are friends who know about your struggles with food and eating, even better.

6. Remind yourself that academics are not more important than maintaining your recovery.

This one can be hard.

Students all get the message that grades set up your future, so focusing on school above all else makes sense.

However, you can't have a real future, a full life, if you sacrifice your mental and physical health in order to do well in school.

If you need to make a mental health day, to cut back on difficult classes/extracurriculars, or you need to take some time away from school altogether, do it.

Your future academic performance depends on your health. Taking the time to work on your recovery is worth it.

7. Consider disclosing your mental illness to your school.

In the spirit of balancing your mental health and ability to excel in school, you may want to disclose your mental illness to your school.

Most schools will understand and honor your needs. If you need to take time away from school for treatment, schools will often work with you (or your child) to accommodate your needs. If you need to eat in class, take a walk when you get overwhelmed, or need an extension on an assignment because you're dealing with emotional or physical distress, most teachers and school systems will understand.

If they do not, you might need to get someone else to advocate for you. This could be someone from your treatment team, a parent, or a guidance counselor at school.

Either way, schools have an obligation to honor mental illnesses as disabilities.

Parents of adolescents may seek a 504 plan for their child, to connect them to critical accommodations such as a pardon from gym class or the ability to eat in the nurse's office (under supervision, so the student is not able to skip their meal.)

College students may declare their mental illness to their disability resources office. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, schools must provide reasonable accommodations to support students in their journey to recovery.

You, possibly along with a trusted advocate, must declare your mental illness and explain to them what may help make the transition back to school in eating disorder recovery much smoother. If you are unsure about what you may need, ask your treatment provider. They have helped students transition back to school and what can help you succeed.

If you or a loved one is suffering from an eating disorder, take the first step today and talk to someone about recovery or simply learn more about the holistic, flexible eating disorder recovery programs we offer.

Ai PonoSeptember 20, 2021