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Person thoughtfully preparing food in their kitchen, representing the peaceful relationship with nourishment supported through nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC with a registered dietitian in Raleigh, NC who offers HAES-informed care for OSFED and disordered eating.

What’s the Difference Between OSFED and Disordered Eating?

Written by Kendra Gaffney on . Posted in Articles, Eating Disorder Recovery, Education.

You’ve been asking yourself a question that weighs heavy: “Is what I’m experiencing ‘bad enough’ to be called an eating disorder?” The confusion around where you fit, or whether you fit anywhere at all, creates its own kind of pain. Nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC can support you in navigating your relationship with eating, whether or not your experience has a formal diagnosis name attached to it.

Maybe you’re sitting in this gray space, not knowing if you “qualify” for help. You search for yourself in descriptions online and don’t quite find a match. The isolation that comes with this uncertainty is real. If you’re asking these questions at all, you’re already struggling, and that struggle matters. You don’t need the “right” diagnosis to deserve compassionate care. This isn’t about finding the perfect category for yourself. It’s about understanding that support exists for you, exactly as you are.

Understanding OSFED

Person cooking in a sunlit kitchen with ease and presence, representing recovery from OSFED or disordered eating. Disordered eating therapy in Asheville, NC and a nutritional therapist in Raleigh, NC provide HAES-informed support without requiring a formal diagnosis.

OSFED stands for Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder, but that clinical language doesn’t capture what it actually feels like to live with it. Here’s what it actually means: OSFED describes real struggles with eating and nourishment. These struggles cause significant pain in your life. These struggles affect your daily routines, your mental health, and your sense of peace in genuine ways. The term gets used when your experience doesn’t fit every specific requirement for anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder. This doesn’t make it less serious. It doesn’t make your pain less real.

Living with OSFED might feel like this:

  • Your relationship with nourishing yourself causes genuine suffering.
  • Behaviors around eating feel compulsive or out of your control.
  • Thoughts about your body or meals take up enormous mental space, crowding out other things that used to matter to you.
  • The distress touches multiple areas of your life, affecting relationships, work, and the activities that once brought you joy.

Please know that a registered dietitian in Raleigh, NC who understands eating disorders recognizes OSFED isn’t a “lesser” diagnosis. It’s a real disorder causing real pain. The specific name matters less than recognizing you’re struggling and deserve support right now.

When Patterns Feel Problematic But Don’t Fit the Diagnosis

Disordered eating describes concerning patterns with nourishment that haven’t reached the specific criteria for a formal eating disorder diagnosis yet. This needs to be said clearly: this doesn’t mean “not serious” or “not real.” It means the formal diagnostic criteria haven’t all been met, but distress is still present and valid. Disordered eating lives on a spectrum. Patterns with eating create distress but don’t yet meet certain clinical thresholds around frequency, duration, or severity. Your eating patterns concern you but don’t match the descriptions you’ve found in articles or books. Rules around nourishment control parts of your life without completely consuming everything.

Thoughts about eating create real distress without being constant or all-consuming. Something feels wrong in your relationship with nourishment, even if you can’t name exactly what or explain it to others in a way that feels adequate. Distress is distress, regardless of whether it comes with a diagnosis attached. If your relationship with eating is causing you pain, that pain deserves attention and care. A registered dietitian understands that your struggle doesn’t need a formal name to be real and worthy of care. Support is available to you without proving how much you’re hurting or meeting someone else’s idea of “sick enough.”

When You’re Not Sure Where You Fit

The line between OSFED and disordered eating isn’t always clear. Sitting in that uncertainty can feel incredibly uncomfortable, like you’re stuck between categories with no clear path forward. Real distress around eating and nourishing yourself exists in both. How you move through your days can be significantly impacted. Your mood, your energy, your relationships all feel the effects. Compassionate attention and support are deserved equally, regardless of which term applies.The boundary between them can shift over time. What starts as disordered eating can progress to OSFED. During recovery, OSFED can shift back toward disordered eating patterns before hopefully resolving entirely.

This creates confusion for you. You’re left wondering which category describes your experience, if either one does. Different healthcare providers might use different terms for what you’re going through, adding to the uncertainty. Getting caught up in finding the “right” label can keep you stuck, delaying the support you actually need.It’s incredibly common not to know exactly where you fall. This doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong or failing to understand your own experience. Here’s what actually matters: the most important question isn’t “Which category am I in?” The question that deserves your attention is “Am I struggling? Do I need support?” Support isn’t something you need to earn by meeting specific criteria or being “sick enough.” You don’t need permission from a diagnosis to reach out for help.

Your Experience Deserves Attention

Woman peacefully eating a meal at home, representing the calm relationship with nourishment possible through recovery from OSFED or disordered eating. Nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC from a registered dietitian in Raleigh, NC provides support without requiring a formal diagnosis.How much you’re struggling matters infinitely more than whether you meet every diagnostic criterion written in a manual. Notice how much mental and emotional energy goes toward thinking about eating, nourishment, or your body. When these thoughts crowd out everything else, leaving little room for work, relationships, or things you used to enjoy, that’s significant. Pay attention to whether your patterns with eating are affecting your relationships or your ability to focus at work or school. Consider if these patterns are impacting activities that used to bring you genuine joy. When nourishment starts taking things away from your life instead of supporting it, that matters deeply.

Recognize if you feel controlled by rules, fears, or compulsions around eating. When freedom around nourishment disappears and is replaced by rigidity or anxiety, support can help restore that freedom. Be honest with yourself about whether shame, anxiety, or guilt regularly accompany meals. When eating feels heavy with difficult emotions rather than relatively neutral or even pleasant, that’s worth addressing with someone who understands. You don’t need to wait until things get worse to deserve help. This belief that you should hold off until you’re “sick enough” causes real harm.

You Don’t Have to Wait

Early support often prevents patterns from deepening into something more entrenched and harder to shift. Common fears come up around seeking support, and all of them make sense. The worry that you’re taking up space meant for people who are “really sick” feels weighty. The concern that providers won’t take you seriously without a formal diagnosis creates hesitation. The fear that seeking help means admitting something is seriously wrong can keep you isolated. Nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC is available to you, full stop, regardless of diagnosis. Reaching out before things become severe isn’t dramatic or attention-seeking. It’s wise. It’s taking care of yourself before the struggle becomes even harder to navigate.

Support That Honors Your Whole Experience

Compassionate support addresses the same fundamental concerns whether you’re navigating OSFED or disordered eating. It can also help if you simply have a painful relationship with nourishment that doesn’t have a name yet. Working with someone who understands means exploring your relationship with eating and nourishment in a space completely free from judgment. Understanding what’s driving the patterns that cause you distress happens with curiosity rather than criticism. There’s no shame in this space, no “shoulds” that add to what you’re already carrying.

Building or rebuilding trust with your body becomes central to the work. This trust often gets disrupted long before patterns with eating become concerning, and restoring it takes time and gentleness. Working through the thoughts and feelings around eating that feel overwhelming or consuming happens at a pace that feels manageable for you. Developing sustainable ways of nourishing yourself that don’t require rigid rules or constant vigilance becomes possible. The shame, anxiety, and disconnection that often accompany struggles with eating get addressed with the care they deserve.

What HAES®-Informed Care Actually Looks Like

The focus stays on your relationship with nourishment and your body, never on changing your body size or shape. This is what Health at Every Size® principles look like in practice. Healing is recognized as possible at every size. There are no weight requirements for deserving or receiving care. Your experience, your autonomy, and your voice remain central throughout the entire process. Recovery isn’t defined by numbers on a scale or fitting into a particular clothing size. It’s defined by your relationship with nourishment becoming more peaceful, more sustainable, and less consuming of your mental and emotional energy.

At Nutritious Thoughts, a registered dietitian in Raleigh, NC sees you as a whole person, not a checklist of symptoms or a diagnostic label. The relationship you build together matters deeply. You bring the expertise about your own life and experience. Your provider brings knowledge about eating disorders and recovery. Together, you figure out what actually helps you, with your needs and what feels sustainable guiding every conversation and decision.

You Don’t Need Permission

Two women in a warm, supportive counseling session, representing the compassionate care offered through nutrition education and counseling in Raleigh and medical nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC for OSFED and disordered eating without diagnosis requirements.So many people delay seeking support because they’re not sure their experience “counts” as serious enough. This waiting game serves no one. Your relationship with eating causing you distress is reason enough to reach out. Significant energy going toward managing thoughts about nourishment or your body means support can lighten that load in ways that might surprise you. When eating feels controlled by fear, shame, or rigid rules rather than by your own needs and preferences, you deserve care that helps you reclaim that autonomy. Noticing patterns that concern you, even if they seem “small” or “not that bad,” makes reaching out sensible and wise.

Let’s address the barriers directly. “I should wait until it gets worse” becomes “Early support prevents escalation and unnecessary suffering.” “Other people have it worse” becomes “Your pain isn’t measured against anyone else’s, and comparison doesn’t serve your healing.” “I don’t have a diagnosis” becomes “Diagnosis isn’t required for receiving compassionate care or taking up space in support.” When you reach out to Nutritious Thoughts, nobody’s going to tell you that you need to get sicker first or prove how much you’re struggling. Your registered dietitian will listen to what’s actually happening for you right now and start from there. That quiet voice in your head wondering if maybe you should talk to someone? Listen to it. It’s often right.

Support Exists for You Through Nutrition Therapy in Raleigh, NC

Whether your experience is called OSFED, disordered eating, or doesn’t have a formal name at all, you deserve support. The label matters far less than addressing the distress you’re living with day to day. Not fitting neatly into categories can feel confusing and isolating, but it doesn’t make your struggle any less real or any less deserving of compassionate care. Recovery and healing are genuinely possible for you, starting exactly where you are today.

Nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC at Nutritious Thoughts provides HAES-informed, compassionate care for anyone struggling with their relationship to eating and nourishment. You can work with a registered dietitian in Raleigh, NC who understands the full spectrum of eating concerns and doesn’t require you to meet diagnostic criteria to receive support. Our nutritional therapist in Raleigh, NC team offers weight-inclusive care that’s available to you regardless of where you fall on any spectrum.

Support is available in-person in Raleigh, Hendersonville, and Asheville, with virtual sessions available across North Carolina. We’re here to meet you exactly where you are.

Expanded Counseling Services at Nutritious Thoughts

At Nutritious Thoughts, we recognize that struggles with eating and nourishment exist on a spectrum, and support should be accessible at any point on that spectrum. Through our individual counseling and community programs, we create spaces where people can find care that fits their actual experiences and needs. Whether you’re just beginning to recognize concerning patterns or you’ve been navigating this for years, compassionate, weight-inclusive support is available to you. Reach out to learn more about how we can walk alongside you in this process.

Man smiling while making a flatbread or tortilla in his kitchen, representing the joyful, shame-free relationship with nourishment supported through nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC with a registered HAES dietitian in Raleigh who honors all eating experiences.

What Is OSFED? A Registered HAES® Dietitian Explains the Eating Disorder Most People Don’t Talk About

Written by Kendra Gaffney on . Posted in Articles, Eating Disorder Recovery, Education.

Your struggles with food don’t look like what you’ve seen in movies or read about online. The experiences described in articles don’t quite match yours. When you try to explain what’s happening to someone, the words feel inadequate. Maybe you’ve caught yourself thinking, “Am I making this up? Or am I just being dramatic? Maybe I’m not really struggling enough to need help.” If you’ve been told, or if you’ve told yourself, that you’re “not sick enough,” please know that’s not true. A HAES®-aligned registered dietitian understands that eating disorders show up in many different ways.

Your experience doesn’t need to match a textbook description to be real and deserving of support. There’s actually a name for when your relationship with food causes genuine pain but doesn’t fit the narrow boxes you’ve been shown. It’s called OSFED, or Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder. Nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC can support you even when, especially when, your story doesn’t match what gets talked about most. You deserve care exactly as you are, right now. This isn’t about labels or diagnoses. It’s about recognizing when you need support and knowing that support exists for you.

What Is OSFED?

Two friends enjoying a variety of dishes together at a table, representing the social connection and food freedom supported through disordered eating therapy in Asheville, NC and working with a dietitian in Hendersonville, NC who honors all eating experiences.

OSFED stands for Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder, but that technical name doesn’t really tell you what it means to actually live with it. Here’s what it actually is: OSFED describes real, serious struggles with food that cause genuine distress. It’s just as valid and deserving of care as any other eating disorder. Your experience matters deeply, causes real pain, and deserves compassionate support. This might feel familiar to you. Maybe the way you think about food and eating takes up enormous space in your mind. But perhaps your body doesn’t look the way people expect eating disorders to look. Perhaps you engage in behaviors around food that feel out of your control, but not with the specific frequency that gets a different diagnosis name.

Your relationship with eating might be consuming your life and affecting your well-being in deep ways. Yet when you look up eating disorders online, your experience doesn’t quite match what’s described. If food or eating is causing you distress, that experience is valid—no justification or explanation needed. Here’s something that might surprise you: OSFED is actually one of the most common eating disorder diagnoses, yet so few people talk about it openly. It stays hidden, leaving many people feeling alone in their struggle. A HAES®- aligned registered dietitian understands that your pain doesn’t need to fit a specific mold to be real and worthy of compassionate support.

When Your Experience Doesn’t Match the Story You’ve Been Told

Real reasons exist for why you might not have recognized this in yourself. People around you may not have seen what you’re going through for understandable reasons too. The cultural conversation about eating disorders centers very specific images and experiences. What gets shown in media rarely reflects the full reality of who actually struggles with disordered eating. Healthcare providers sometimes miss what’s happening when you don’t fit their mental picture of what an eating disorder “should” look like. You might not “look sick” in the ways people have learned to recognize. Your body might not have changed in expected ways.

This leads others, maybe even you, to dismiss what’s happening as not serious or not real. The harm this causes runs deep. Eating disorders affect people across all body sizes, all genders, all ages, and all backgrounds. Narrow ideas about who gets eating disorders cause real harm to real people who are suffering. So many people carry this pain alone because they don’t think they “count” as sick enough. Whether others can see your struggle from the outside doesn’t determine its validity. How this is affecting your life, your peace of mind, and your relationship with yourself, that’s what truly matters. Understanding what OSFED can look like might help you see yourself more clearly and recognize that what you’re experiencing has a name.

OSFED Symptoms: Recognizing Yourself in the Experience

OSFED shows up differently for different people, and you don’t need to relate to every description here for your experience to be valid. What follows are some common ways OSFED might feel, described not as clinical symptoms but as lived experiences. Restriction might look different from what you’ve read about. The fear around certain foods feels consuming. Thoughts about nourishing yourself take up enormous mental space. You’re constantly negotiating with yourself about what feels safe for your body. Everything about restriction feels familiar to you, except your body doesn’t match what people expect to see when they think about eating disorders.

This doesn’t make your struggle any less real. Your thoughts are just as consuming. The impact on your life is just as significant. Body size doesn’t determine whether your experience is legitimate. Sometimes behaviors meant to compensate for eating exist on their own. Fear drives these actions instead of genuine care for yourself. Shame and secrecy often accompany this pattern, creating deep isolation. What this takes from you, both physically and emotionally, is real and significant.

You Don’t Need to Check Every Box

Your relationship with nourishing yourself might feel out of control in ways that don’t match other descriptions you’ve encountered. You might find yourself in patterns with eating that feel difficult to interrupt, or experiencing episodes of feeling out of control that don’t happen as frequently as diagnostic criteria specify. Your distress doesn’t become less valid because the pattern looks different. The pain of feeling disconnected from being able to care for yourself through nourishment is just as real.

What matters most isn’t fitting into a specific category. If your relationship with food and caring for your body is causing you genuine distress, that deserves attention from a registered HAES® dietitian. Thoughts about nourishment may be occupying significant mental space, and meals may bring on anxiety or shame. Feeling unable to trust yourself around eating is also a sign that support could help. A HAES®-aligned registered dietitian. in Raleigh, NC can work with you regardless of how your struggles present themselves. You won’t be required to meet specific criteria or prove how much you’re suffering.

Beyond Labels: The Real Impact

Mother making a smoothie with children nearby in a bright kitchen, representing the flexible, accessible approaches to nourishment supported through nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC with a registered HAES dietitian in Raleigh who honors all ways of feeding yourself and your family.What matters most isn’t the diagnostic name. It’s understanding how this is affecting your actual, daily life. Social situations that involve meals might fill you with dread days in advance. The anticipation builds, and planning becomes this complicated mental exercise trying to figure out how you’ll navigate it. Thinking about eating, nourishing yourself, or your body takes up so much mental and emotional space that everything else in your life gets crowded out.

Relationships often shift under this weight. You might find yourself withdrawing, or struggling to explain what you’re experiencing to people who care about you. Activities that used to bring genuine joy might feel dimmed or distant now, like you’re going through the motions but not fully there. Your body might feel like something you’re constantly battling rather than something you’re simply living in. When anxiety and depression show up alongside eating disorders, which happens often, everything feels heavier and harder to navigate.

The Parts Others Don’t See

There’s a constant negotiation about how to nourish yourself, what to eat, when eating feels okay. This exhausts you in ways that are hard to describe. Shame can follow meals, even when you desperately wish it wouldn’t. The ability to just exist in your body without constant awareness feels like a distant memory. Keeping all of this private while maintaining appearances and pretending everything is fine creates an exhaustion that builds over time and touches everything.

Please know these struggles are real. They matter. And they respond to compassionate support. You don’t need to wait until things feel completely unbearable to reach out for help. Understanding that what you’re experiencing has a name and that support exists can be the first step toward feeling different.

Finding Care That Actually Fits Your Experience

Support for OSFED doesn’t have to mean forcing yourself into another rigid framework or set of rules. It doesn’t require replacing one way of controlling your eating with another. Here’s what HAES®-informed eating disorder support actually looks like. The focus is on your relationship with nourishing yourself and your body, not on making your body look a certain way. Healing is recognized as possible at every size. Recovery isn’t defined by whether your body changes. Building trust with your body becomes central instead of trying to control or manage it. The thoughts, feelings, and patterns that cause you distress are addressed with genuine compassion. What you know about yourself and your experience is honored and valued throughout the process.

When working with a HAES®-aligned registered dietitian at Nutritious Thoughts, this shows up in real ways. Nobody’s tracking your body size as a measure of whether you’re “getting better.” Conversations explore what your body needs and what feels sustainable for you, without prescribing rigid meal plans that might trigger more distress. The emotional experience you’re navigating gets just as much attention as your eating patterns themselves. You’re working toward sustainable peace with nourishing yourself, not temporary compliance with someone else’s rules. Your recovery gets to look like what works for your life, not someone else’s predetermined idea of what recovery should be.

This Work Happens in Partnership.

You’re the expert on your own experience. The relationship with your provider is collaborative. Your voice matters, your choices are respected, and your autonomy stays central throughout. Recovery from eating disorders isn’t a straight line. There are challenging days alongside easier ones. HAES®-informed care makes room for that truth while offering steady, consistent support. Nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC that’s weight-inclusive approaches OSFED without layering on new restrictions or rules that could cause more harm.

Family sharing a peaceful meal together in their kitchen, representing the supportive, shame-free environment fostered through medical nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC and eating disorder therapy in Raleigh, NC that honors all bodies and eating experiences.Permission to Seek Support Right Now

So many people with OSFED delay reaching out because they don’t feel “sick enough” to deserve help. This belief is incredibly common, and it’s also not true. You don’t need to get worse to deserve care. Proving your pain to anyone isn’t required. Waiting until things become more severe, more visible, or more anything isn’t necessary. Support is available to you right now, exactly as you are.

Several things might be holding you back from reaching out, and all of them make sense. Perhaps you’re feeling like others are struggling more than you are, so you should save resources for people who “really need them.” The belief that you should be able to handle this on your own, that needing help means weakness or failure, might be sitting with you. Worry that you won’t be taken seriously by healthcare providers is common. Fear about what getting support might mean or require can also create hesitation.

These Concerns are Valid.

They’re also not reasons to continue carrying this alone. A nutritional therapist in Raleigh, NC who understands eating disorders will take your experience seriously, exactly as it is. No minimizing, no dismissal, and no requirement to prove how much you’re struggling. Recovery is genuinely possible. Many people with OSFED find freedom from the constant mental space taken up by thoughts about eating and nourishment. Trust with their bodies gets rebuilt over time. Discovering what it feels like to nourish themselves without shame or anxiety weighing on every choice becomes possible. Support can start exactly where you are right now.

Ready to Work with a Registered HAES® Dietitian in Raleigh, NC? Your Experience Matters

At Nutritious Thoughts, we offer HAES®-informed, compassionate care for people navigating OSFED and all eating disorders. Our team of providers understands the full spectrum of eating disorders and approaches recovery without weight focus. Nutrition therapy in Raleigh, NC is available in-person in Raleigh, Hendersonville, and Asheville, with virtual sessions across North Carolina. A HAES®-aligned registered dietitian in Raleigh, NC can work with you at your own pace, centering your autonomy and respecting your experience..

Support is available in-person in Raleigh, Hendersonville, and Asheville, with virtual sessions available across North Carolina. We’re here to meet you exactly where you are.

Expanded Counseling Services at Nutritious Thoughts

At Nutritious Thoughts, we recognize that eating disorder recovery often benefits from community connection alongside individual support. Through our programs and group offerings, we create spaces where people navigating OSFED and other eating disorders can find understanding, reduce the isolation that often accompanies these struggles, and build sustainable practices in supportive environments. These offerings are available both in-person and virtually, meeting you wherever you are in your journey toward recovery and peace with nourishing yourself.

OSFED & Additional Eating or Feeding Disorders: The Signs, Symptoms, & Impact

Written by nutritiousthoughtsblog on . Posted in Education.

Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder

According to the National Eating Disorder Association…

Formerly described at Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) in the DSM-IV, Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED), is a feeding or eating disorder that causes significant distress or impairment, but does not meet the criteria for another feeding or eating disorder.

Examples of OSFED Include:

  • Atypical anorexia nervosa (weight is not below normal)
  • Bulimia nervosa (with less frequent behaviors)
  • Binge-eating disorder (with less frequent occurrences)
  • Purging disorder (purging without binge eating)
  • Night eating syndrome (excessive nighttime food consumption)

The commonality in all of these conditions is the serious emotional and psychological suffering and/or serious problems in areas of work, school or relationships. If something does not seem right, but your experience does not fall into a clear category, you still deserve attention. If you are concerned about your eating and exercise habits and your thoughts and emotions concerning food, activity and body image, we urge you to consult an ED expert.

Symptoms associated with anorexia nervosa include:

  • Inadequate food intake leading to a weight that is clearly too low.
  • Intense fear of weight gain, obsession with weight and persistent behavior to prevent weight gain.
    • Self-esteem overly related to body image.
    • Inability to appreciate the severity of the situation.
    • Binge-Eating/Purging Type involves binge eating and/or purging behaviors during the last three months.

Restricting Type does not involve binge eating or purging.

Symptoms associated with bulimia nervosa include:

  • Frequent episodes of consuming very large amount of food followed by behaviors to prevent weight gain, such as self-induced vomiting.
  • A feeling of being out of control during the binge-eatingepisodes.
  • Self-esteem overly related to body image.

Symptoms associated with binge eating disorder include:

  • Frequent episodes of consuming very large amount of food but without behaviors to prevent weight gain, such as self-induced vomiting.
  • A feeling of being out of control during the binge eating episodes.
  • Feelings of strong shame or guilt regarding the binge eating.
  • Indications that the binge eating is out of control, such as eating when not hungry, eating to the point of discomfort, or eating alone because of shame about the behavior.

 

Additional Eating or Feeding Disorders

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder

  • Failure to consume adequate amounts of food, with serious nutritional consequences, but without the psychological features of Anorexia Nervosa.
  • Reasons for the avoidance of food include fear of vomiting or dislike of the textures of the food.

Pica

  • The persistent eating of non-food items when it is not a part of cultural or social norms.

Rumination Disorder

  • Regurgitation of food that has already been swallowed. The regurgitated food is often re-swallowed or spit out.

Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorder

  • When behaviors do not meet full criteria for any of the other feeding and eating disorders, but still cause clinically significant problems.
  • Alternatively, when clinician is unable to assess whether an individual meets criterion for another disorder, for example, when there is a lack of information in an emergency situation.