The practice of yoga, especially slower and non-competitive forms of yoga, shows promise as a method for treating eating disorders. A 2005 study found that yoga's capacity to teach body responsiveness—the habit of listening and responding to the body and its sensations—reduced disordered eating thoughts and tendencies among women. Individuals with eating disorders maintain adversarial relationships with their bodies. Disordered eaters display extreme behaviors with regard to food, either through restricting their eating, bingeing and then purging, or simply bingeing. Disordered eaters suppress and ignore the natural sensations of their bodies and adhere to the habits of their illnesses. Estranged from their suffering bodies, disordered eaters are ruled by compulsive thoughts and ideas.

Yoga offers a unique remedy to this situation by helping individuals with eating disorders begin to listen and respond to what their bodies are telling them. Yoga provides a safe context for disordered eaters to confront, deconstruct, and move past troubling thoughts without acting on them. Yoga also assists individuals with eating disorders to establish a new basis for self-esteem by shifting the emphasis of self-image away from what the body looks like and toward what the body can do. Listening to the body and responding to its sensations in a positive way is the first step for many disordered eaters in learning to properly care for themselves and their bodies again.

Slower and non-competitive forms of yoga also seem to circumvent the perfectionist attitudes possessed by many disordered eaters. Research has shown that individuals with eating disorders who exercise as a form of self-discipline and purging are most likely to engage in aerobic exercise. Such exercise is often driven by music, a computer program on an exercise machine, or by an instructor. The body's sensations are suppressed and ignored in order to adhere to these external stimuli, which can help foster the mind-body disconnect of disordered eaters. Yoga, in contrast, engages the mind and body in a direct collaborative relationship, encouraging students to always balance effort with reverence for the body. New students of yoga quickly find that sheer force does not benefit them, as it does in other forms of exercise. The goal of yoga is to hold each pose with grace, ease, and stillness of mind. This can be accomplished only by balancing the mind and body together.

Many individuals suffering from eating disorders have serious health problems. Yoga offers a gentle form of exercise that can be adapted to almost any fitness level. Anorexics and bulimics, who often suffer from osteoporosis, can begin to build bone and muscle strength again. Binge-eaters, who are often obese, and suffer from osteoarthritis can also benefit from increase bone and muscle strength. Yoga also improves circulation, flexibility, balance, and stamina. Individuals recovering from all kinds of eating disorders can benefit from these results.

In addition to being adaptable to any fitness level, different yogic poses can help address the specific attitudes of each eating disorder. Anorexics, who tend to be perfectionistic and rigid, can learn psychological flexibility and openness by practicing poses which encourage physical flexibility and calm. Bulimics can benefit from poses which encourage self-containment and stability. Binge-eaters can practice poses which encourage locating sources of inner strength.

Eating disorders are related to the individual's inability to deal with life events or stress factors in a healthy manner. Disordered eaters engage in extreme behaviors which are specifically designed to help them evade or block negative emotions. Feelings of anger, anxiety, shame, depression, trauma, or frustration become triggers for these extreme behaviors. Yogic breathing and meditation techniques can help disordered eaters learn to constructively meet, rather than evade, these emotions and to self-soothe. Yogic poses counteract negative self-image by providing immediate proof of the body's grace and strength. Each yogic pose offers a way to engage the body and mind in a productive union, and to learn how to exert healthy control over body and mind. Each pose is a path to healthy self-exploration, both mental and physical.

References
Daubenmier, Jennifer J. The Relationship of Yoga, Body Awareness, and Body Responsiveness to Self-Objectification and Disordered Eating. Psychology of Women Quarterly. 29(2):207-219, June 2005.