Weight, eating and your cycle

Lower weight, higher weight and sudden weight loss can all affect menstrual cycles. But a change in eating or weight alongside a missed period does not tell you why it happened.

Food, hormones and ovulation

At a low weight, the body may make less oestrogen, and periods can become irregular or stop. The Office on Women’s Health describes this particularly when weight loss comes from not eating enough or exercising too much. Tell your clinician about nutrition and activity as well as period dates.

Higher weight can also affect ovulation. Fat cells make oestrogen as well as the ovaries, and changes in hormone production can interfere with egg release. These effects may help explain cycle changes, but appearance alone cannot tell you the cause.

The NHS lists other explanations for missed periods, including pregnancy, stress, thyroid conditions and hormonal contraception. A clinician can look at these possibilities instead of assuming weight explains everything. Mention your contraception and any medicines when discussing a change.

Eating difficulties can affect people at any weight

Eating disorders can affect people at any body weight. Someone can appear healthy and still be seriously unwell. NIMH explains that eating disorders are illnesses that people do not choose to have. Recovery is possible with treatment.

Reasons to ask for help include strict rules around food, avoiding meals with other people, making yourself sick, using laxatives after eating, or feeling driven to exercise excessively. Worries about weight or shape that take up a lot of your time also deserve attention. Your clinician can help you explore what is happening.

Some restrictive eating has little to do with weight or shape. The NHS describes avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, or ARFID, as avoiding foods or limiting intake, sometimes because of texture, a frightening experience with food or low interest in eating. Explain the difficulty in your own words, even if it does not fit what you expected an eating disorder to look like.

Periods may stop in an eating disorder, but that is only one possible sign. Feeling cold, tired or dizzy and digestive difficulties can also occur. You can ask for care while you are still having periods; the NHS advice to seek help does not depend on losing them.

Physical symptoms that need urgent help

Call 999 now (UK), 911 (US), or your local emergency number, if you have heart palpitations with chest pain, breathlessness, feeling faint or fainting. Call the same emergency number if someone faints during exercise or does not fully recover.

Contact an urgent GP service or NHS 111 today (UK), or seek urgent medical care today (US and elsewhere), if dizziness on standing does not settle or you are passing less urine than usual.

Planning care with your clinician

Book a GP appointment as soon as you can in the UK, or see your doctor in the US and elsewhere, if eating concerns are affecting you. A GP may ask about eating habits and feelings and check physical health. You can take someone you trust to the appointment.

Treatment can involve talking therapy, medical monitoring and nutritional counselling. The mix depends on the condition and your needs. Ask how any advice about weight will fit with support for eating difficulties, and explain if weighing or food discussions are distressing.

If a clinician recommends weight change, ask how to approach it safely with support. The Office on Women’s Health advises discussing weight loss or weight gain with a doctor or nurse. You can discuss period changes without setting yourself a deadline to change your body.

Support in the UK and US

Beat’s UK helplines are England 0808 801 0677, Scotland 0808 801 0432, Wales 0808 801 0433 and Northern Ireland 0808 801 0434. Beat also offers webchat. In the US, the National Alliance for Eating Disorders offers help finding treatment on 866-662-1235. Its helpline is not a crisis service.

For urgent mental health help, call NHS 111 and select the mental health option in England, or contact an urgent GP service elsewhere in the UK. In the US, call or text 988. Elsewhere, contact your local crisis service or urgent-care clinician.

Call 999 now in the UK, 911 in the US, or your local emergency number, if you have seriously harmed yourself, your life is at risk or you cannot keep yourself safe. In the UK, Samaritans also offers listening support on 116 123, any time. Use emergency care first when there is immediate danger.