On WEDAD 2025: The Urgent Need to Break the Stigma Around EatingDisorders in the Middle East
By Dr. Carine El Khazen
When I began my clinical work in Dubai over two decades ago, I never imagined that eating
disorders would become the heart of my professional mission. At the time, terms like anorexia or
bulimia were rarely mentioned in Arab societies. These illnesses were dismissed as Western
problems, teenage phases, or attention-seeking behaviors — if they were acknowledged at all.
But the reality was very different. I met adolescent girls hiding food, parents desperate for
answers, young men bingeing in silence, and patients misdiagnosed with depression or anxiety
because no one was looking beneath the surface. Each clinical encounter echoed the same
question: “Why is there no one who understands what I’m going through?”
Binge eating is normalized in many Arab cultures — encouraged even — as a marker of
hospitality, masculinity, or family bonding. As a result, compulsive overeating often goes
unrecognized, misdiagnosed, or dismissed entirely. Similarly, I’ve worked with veiled women
experiencing profound body dissatisfaction and body avoidance, yet without the language or
permission to speak about their distress.
When I established the first multidisciplinary outpatient program for eating disorders in Dubai in
2017, there was no roadmap. No culturally adapted model, no regional training, no existing
teams. What we had was a deep commitment to provide care that was evidence-based,
structured, and tailored. Over time, the program became one of the few internationally
recognized CBT-E centers of excellence, and I began to witness something powerful — recovery,
when the right care was finally in place.
What was missing wasn’t will. It was knowledge, access, and training. That’s why I became a
fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED), where I now contribute to global efforts to
shape clinical standards and training frameworks. It also gave me a platform to bring the needs
of our region into international conversations — to say, “We exist. Our patients are here. And
they deserve to be seen.”
Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of organizing five international eating disorder
conferences in the UAE, bringing leading voices like Daniel Le Grange, Janet Treasure, and
Ulrike Schmidt to share knowledge with our region’s professionals. After the Beirut port
explosion in 2020, I offered free training in CBT-E to colleagues in Lebanon and Qatar. Today,
I’m preparing to launch a culturally sensitive online CBT-E training in Arabic, designed for
psychologists, psychiatrists, dietitians, and physicians across the Middle East and North Africa.
And yet, despite all of this, the gap remains wide. There are no specialized treatment centers
in the entire Middle East. Few professionals have received adequate training. Male patients
often remain undiagnosed due to stigma. Adolescents are dismissed as dramatic or disobedient,
and families are left with no roadmap.
Emerging studies show that the prevalence of eating disorders in some Arab countries now rivals
that of Western nations. But access to care remains scarce. The region also faces additional layers
of complexity — from religious fasting to generational trauma, from the normalization of
extreme body control to the invisibility of body distress in veiled populations.
Eating disorders are not a passing phase. They are complex, deadly, and deeply misunderstood
illnesses — but they are also treatable. With the right care, people do recover. But that care must
be specialized, compassionate, and grounded in evidence.
Training psychologists, physicians, and dietitians in specialized, evidence-based treatment
is not just a medical necessity — it is a social and human imperative. It is the only way we
can give our patients what they deserve: a real chance at recovery.
On WEDAD 2025, I share my journey not to speak of achievement, but to advocate for action.
Let us break the stigma, raise the standards, and build systems of care that no longer leave our
patients behind.
NOTE: World Eating Disorders Action ™ is a global independent collective founded in 2014 by activists and people with lived experience across the globe to share correct information about eating disorders, promote evidence based treatment and offer a platform for like minded organizations to promote policy, research and program advances, ultimately to help those affected and their families. We bring together over 300 organizations from over 60 countries globally each year. Blog posts by individuals and agencies are the opinions and perspectives of those contributing and not necessarily the views of World Eating Disorders Action.