Is an eating disorder taking over your life? If you’re questioning whether you might have an eating disorder, taking this self-assessment is an important first step. As an eating disorder specialist in Bloomington, Indiana, I’ve created this tool to help you recognize the warning signs.

Ask yourself these questions. Do you:

• Feel guilty or ashamed about eating?
• Have thoughts about food, weight, and eating throughout your day?
• Feel out of control when it comes to eating?
• Vomit after meals?
• Use laxatives or diuretics?
• Feel tired, exhausted, and/or depressed?
• Obsessively think about food, weight, and eating?
• Exercise obsessively?
• Avoid eating meals or snacks when you’re around other people?
• Calculate fat grams, calories, and/or carbohydrates?
• Weigh yourself often and feel obsessed with the number on the scale?
• Exercise because you feel like you have to, not because you want to?
• Feel afraid of gaining weight?
• Feel out of control when you are eating?
• Engage in these eating patterns: extreme dieting, withdrawn or rigid behaviors at mealtime, or secretive bingeing?
• Consider weight loss, dieting, and/or control of food to be one of your major concerns?
• Feel ashamed, disgusted, or guilty after eating?
• Worry about the weight, shape, or size of your body?
• Feel like your identity and value are based on how you look or how much you weigh?

If you answered “yes” to several of these questions, you may be struggling with disordered eating patterns that could benefit from professional support. Eating disorders like anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder are serious mental health conditions, but they are treatable.