Food Preoccupation
Many people incorrectly believe that people with anorexia are so scared of food or hate food so much that they never want to think about it or engage with it. In my experience in anorexia communities, anorexia patients often have an obsession with food to the point where they spend the majority of their days taking about food, looking up recipes, cooking for family or friends, hoarding food (but not eating it), etc.
Food preoccupation reduces the bandwidth (or mental capacity to deal with other things) of people with anorexia. If they are spending all of their mental ability thinking about food, exercise, and body image, they have less time to think about their school work, job, or other things.
An Estimation of My Brain Activity Without Anorexia vs. During Anorexia
This preoccupation can be due to a combination of being starved and having obsessive or compulsive personalities, which is common in anorexia patients (British Journal of Medical Psychology).
Food preoccupation is shown in the Minnesota Starvation Study, where healthy men underwent a period of starvation and became extremely obsessed with thinking about food, reading about food, and dreaming about food. This shows that spending large amounts of time thinking about food, collecting recipes, and being engrossed in thoughts of eating are a result of the physical act of starvation, and not necessary the desire to be thin. Weight loss itself can change what you think about and prioritize.
For me personally, I spent hours baking food for other people and never eating it myself, I would hoard treats in my locker at school with no plan of ever eating them, and I spent hours looking up recipes. I personally attribute this behavior to wanting to live vicariously through what other people were eating and wishing to prove that I had the strong-willpower to not eat the food others were eating.
One night I remember going so bed so deprived of food that I ended up dreaming about french toast and waking up from this dream because I was so hungry. I was constantly thinking about the number of calories I'd consumed that day and how I could reduce the number for the next day. Luckily, as I worked towards recovery and reached a healthy weight, food became a much smaller part of my daily thoughts and I was able to focus on other things.