Binge Eating Disorder Help

Binge eating disorder is a type of eating disorder in which the sufferer consumes food, unusually the large amounts of food, on a regular basis in a brief period of time, hungry or not and continues to eat until they feel rather uncomfortable. These conditions are usually followed by feelings of guilt. Here the sufferer of such eating disorder does not induce purging after binging unlike in the case of bulimia. This type of binge eating disorder is a typical problem, which affects both men and women but it is more common in women. This harmful habit of overeating normally tends to develop during childhood.

It is still not so easy to pin point the exact cause or causes of this disorder. There are, however, some possible reasons behind this eating disorder. Depression is considered to be one of the main causes of eating disorder. No one actually knows for sure if mental anxiety or depression is a cause or an effect of binge eating disorder but it has been noted that about fifty percent of the individuals with this disorder have a history of depression or are depressed. This anxiety or depression may be even totally unrelated.

Dieting is considered as one of the reasons but it is still not clear if only dieting is a cause of binge eating. Nearly about fifty percent of the sufferers of binge eating disorder had episodes of binging disorder before they started to diet. Dieting may actually worsen the disordered condition. Many scientists and researchers have come to the conclusion that genes may in some way be involved as it was found that many members of the same family suffered from this disorder. Studies and surveys have shown that some individuals who cannot handle their emotions like anger, sadness, stress etc and even people who have a low self esteem often turn to binge eating in order to cope better. These people binge eat in order to hide themselves from these various emotions.

Some of the well known signs and symptoms of binge eating disorder are, people gain weight and subsequently become obese; they eat late at night or when not hungry; they suffer from fluctuations in weight; they consume food until they feel uncomfortably full; they suffer from an anxious and depressed mood; they eat within any two hour period a quantity of food bigger than a non sufferer would eat in the same period of time and feeling a lack of control over the whole episode; they have low self-esteem; they have no desire for sex; their food is eaten rapidly without chewing; they hide food; they hoard food; they try out various diets; they believe that life will be much better if they lose weight; if there is a disappointment in their life or they feel stressed or unhappy they try to cope with the various situations by consuming food; they avoid social function in which food will be present; they eat food when not hungry; they feel ashamed and guilty about their over their overeating; they eat alone or in secret as they feel embarrassed as to the enormous quantity they consume or they tend to have suicidal thoughts.

• Felicia Byrnes
• 07/01/2009, 2:59 AM
• 0 Comments