Binge Eating - a Component of All Eating Disorders!

Copyright (c) 2008 Stephen Lau

Binge eating is a critical component is all eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia. Understanding binging is the key to resolving all weight-related disorders.

What is binge eating? Do we all binge occasionally? Is binging synonymous with love of food?

Binge eating is uncontrolled eating, often accompanied by shame and guilt. In other words, it is an act with full awareness as well as helplessness. Binging episodes occur quite frequently - often at least once or twice a week.

Shame and guilt often propel the resultant purging, which is getting the excessive amount of food out of the body system. Purging out of fear of weight gain is a critical component of bulimia, which is a disorder alternating between binging and purging.

Binge eating plays a pivotal role in any eating disorder, which is a psychological disorder using food to cope with disturbed emotions.

Many people have emotional problems, but they may not have an eating disorder. So how does one develop binge eating, or who are vulnerable to this disorder?

Binge eating often begins with having an unhealthy abnormal food relationship. If you ear normally, you have reduced risk of binge eating even if you do have emotional problems.

Any dieting is abnormal eating. Initially, an individual may want to control weight through dieting, but without much success. Then that individual may try one diet after another with no substantial solution to the weight problem. It is this feeling of deprivation of food (feeling the unfairness of being deprived of the joy of eating), accompanied by despair and frustration (feeling the inability to lose weight despite the efforts), which ultimately turns the individual from the diets into binge eating. As a result, cyclical eating problems develop and persist, indefinitely perpetuating the eating disorder.

Binge eating, a self-deprecating eating disorder out of subconscious fear of not being able to stop eating voluntarily, may begin in the formative years of an individual with unhealthy eating patterns, or in young adulthood as a result of incapability of handling emotional, social and environmental stress. Binge eating may also have a physiological connection with depletion of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, leading to unbalanced brain chemistry. Interestingly, many depressive patients are vulnerable to binge eating, often turning to foods to calm their nerves.

To confront someone close to you with binge eating may result in relentless control battles. It is important to understand the importance of disengaging yourself from food issues, and that striving to control someone's eating behavior, in spite of your good intentions, may only aggravate the problem and interfere with the patient's capacity to change.

Accepting your own limitations and removing yourself from the problem are critical to disengaging someone from binge eating. The eating-disordered individual is responsible for the consequences of eating behavior, such as over spending on food, or cleaning up the mess from vomiting. Do not make excuses for the eating-disordered individual. It is important for the individual to learn to take responsibility for the consequences of the eating behavior.

Do not proffer advice or opinions. Remember, an individual with an eating disorder is looking for approval, often a sign of anxiety or insecurity. Your reassurances or suggestions may at best provide only temporary relief. The individual must learn to develop own judgment and perception of self-worth - which are often absent in an eating-disordered individual. Just be supportive and demonstrate your love and care. Don't play the role of a therapist!

Quite often, an eating disorder may be due to an unfilled void in one's life. Something may be missing in one's life, and that void needs toe be addressed in order to pave the way for recovery.

Develop a healthier relationship with the eating-disordered individual through better communication, establishing responsibilities, and respecting rights (the right to grow up, and the right to take full responsibility for one's actions, among others).

Gradually, the eating-disordered individual will see the abnormal eating behavior patterns, and make the necessary changes or to seek professional help. Yes, this takes patience and perseverance. Don't forget that it takes time to develop the binge eating disorder; accordingly, it may take a while to disengage oneself from that eating disorder.