Eating disorder symptoms and corresponding evidence-based treatments: a narrative review

Eating disorders affect millions worldwide and are associated with serious medical complications, functional impairment, and increased risk of mortality. Yet current treatments are only effective for 40-55% of people, underscoring a dire need for improved and novel interventions. Limited treatment response may be due to (a) the high heterogeneity of eating disorder symptoms and (b) high rates of co-occurrence with other transdiagnostic symptoms, which are not currently addressed in standard treatments.

To address this gap, recent work has adopted a symptom-focused perspective to clarify how transdiagnostic symptoms interact and maintain pathology. This approach aims to guide more personalized treatment by identifying symptoms most relevant for each individual. However, this requires a clearer understanding of how eating disorder symptoms and co-occurring symptoms relate to one another. The present review synthesizes 30 common eating disorder and co-occurring symptoms and outlines the associated evidence-based treatments. These symptom-treatment connections are derived from prior empirical symptom network analysis and organized to help clinicians and researchers better understand the functional role of each symptom and the interventions used to address them.

By linking symptoms with their corresponding treatment approaches, this review offers a comprehensive and practical reference to support refinement of existing treatment and development of personalized, symptom-level interventions. This framework may assist clinicians and researchers in selecting targeted strategies for individuals.