Hormone therapy may help reduce the feelings of body dissatisfaction associated with eating disorders including anorexia and bulimia in transgenders, a study has found. Eating disorders including anorexia, bingeing, self-induced vomiting and the misuse of diet pills and laxatives have been linked to people's deep-seated unhappiness with their body, fuelled by Western society's obsession with an idealised image of beauty.

For some transgender people, striving to achieve a masculine or feminine body shape can influence their eating behaviours. While in the case of transgender males (assigned female at birth but who identify as male) who are not on hormone treatment some may even restrict what they eat as a way of stopping menstruation.