how can an excessive diet cause an eating disorder ?

Answer 1

Apparently they did an experiment and got this group of men to halve what they ate, they began to get some of the idiosyncracies of an eating disorder, the preoccupation, the obsession. But really you have to realise that all that is a symptom not a cause, something makes you go on the drastic diet in the first place that brings on the other problems. People have a certain sensitivity they are born with I think. What you eat is the easiest thing to control when you lack control over other areas of your life.

Answer 2

Excessive and intense diets can cause eating disorders because they focus so much on your eating and food issues that it makes one feel control issues around food. It is easier to control food than to control many other aspects of life. You start thinking that you can make yourself lose a little bit more and then one morning, tired draggy and feeling like god ran over you, you wake up at 85 pounds thinking, "what have I done to myself?"