Binge eating disorder is more prevalant then you think. When we think of eating disorders, it can often become easy to generalize thinking only of severe under eating (i.e. anorexia or bulimia). One much less discussed is Binge eating disorder (BED), but it absolutely needs to be.
Binge eating disorder is characterized by eating unusually large amounts of food during a discrete period of time and there is the feeling of loss of control while the eating is happening. With other eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia the person will compensate for a binge by purging, laxatives, excessive exercise etc., but in binge eating there is no purging.
Nearly 4 million Americans have the eating disorder seen mostly in women, but the gender ratio is much less skewed than with bulimia nervosa. There is also a much higher rate of the disorder seen among patients enrolled in weight-loss programs. The median age of onset is late teens to early twenties. The disorder can occur in both men and women in any weight class.
Some research even suggests that this is more worrisome than the other eating disorders in terms of the number of people effected by it.
The Academy for Eating Disorders states that although patients usually begin binge eating in their teens; they typicallyare nottreated till they are middle aged. Obese adults with binge eating disorder eat more calories, have more distress, impaired quality of life and have more psychiatric conditions.We have medicine for altered brain chemistry. We have medicine for guilt and shame. We have medicine for compulsive overeating.
We can work with your psychiatrist or mental health care professional to re-regulate your brain chemistry.
Binge Eating is Not Overeating