A trigger could be something as seemingly innocuous as teasing or as devastating as rape or incest.
Triggers often happen at times of transition, shock, or loss where increased demands are made on people who already are unsure of their ability to meet expectations. Such triggers might include puberty, starting a new school, beginning a new job, death, divorce, marriage, family problems, breakup of an important relationship, critical comments from someone important, graduation into a chaotic, competitive world, and so forth.
Wanting to take control and fix things, but not really knowing how, and under the influence of a culture that equates success and happiness with thinness, the person tackles her/his body instead of the problem at hand.
Perhaps the most common trigger of disordered eating is dieting. As simplistic as this may sound, many cases of eating disorders start off with dieting and attempts at weight management. This is especially so when the person decides to diet without the assistance of a professional e.g. nutritionist, dietician, doctor and follow fad diets that are not based on expert advice but on the ‘quickest’ results that someone else obtained. These diets may be based on incorrect information that misguides the person into unhealthy choices. The diet may then become an object of control over other circumstances in life and the person is slowly enveloped into a vicious cycle of thoughts and obsessions. He/She may engage in behvaiours to compensate for guilt which may result after eating something a small as a cracker or after a binge that left the person uncomfortable full or sick.