What is Binge Eating?

You probably have heard from others that they “binged” on some food like chocolate or pizza.  Did they truly binge or did they overeat?  Most people overeat every now and then, but it does not constitute binge eating.  Binge eating is an eating disorder.

Description of Binge Eating

The following depicts a typical binge:

Cheryl grabbed potato chip after potato chip and pushed them into her mouth, often not even chewing them.  She began randomly grabbing other food….cookies, ice cream, plain bread.  Cheryl couldn’t stop eating.  It was as if some other entity controlled her body.  She felt so out of control.  Her stomach ached with all the food in it, but she continued to eat.  She stopped eating only because she felt very ill.  Afterwards, Cheryl felt ashamed, depressed and angry at herself.

 Subjective vs Objective Binge Eating

There are two types of binges:  objective and subjective.   An objective binge is when a person eats a large amount of food in one episode that may last minutes to hours.  Often a person eats thousands or tens of thousands of calories in the one binge.  Some people consume large amounts of low calorie foods, such as several large bowls of salad greens or plain popcorn.

A subjective binge is eating food in the normal amount that the person feels distressed eating.  The person may feel uncomfortable eating the food because it contains something considered taboo, such as fat, sugar, or carbohydrates (e.g., bread and pasta).  Subjective binges do not meet the diagnostic requirement of binge eating, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which is the tool mental health professionals use to diagnose mental disorders.  Nonetheless, subjective binges can be quite distressful and concerning.

Signs and Symptoms of Binge Eating

The characteristics of binge eating are:

• eating a large amount of food
• feeling out of control when eating a large amount of food
• eating much more rapidly than usual
• eating until feeling uncomfortably full
• eating large amounts of food even when not hungry
• eating alone because of being embarrassed by the amount of food eaten
• feeling guilty, depressed, ashamed or disgusted with yourself after eating so much
• the binge occurs repeatedly

Help is Available

If you think that you or a loved one binge eats, please contact an eating disorder clinic or a psychologist who specializes in eating disorders for a consultation.  Whether the binge is objective or subjective, the suffering can stop with appropriate treatment.

The following organizations maintain directories of eating disorder specialists:

In the United States, the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) and the Academy for Eating Disorders  (AED)

In Canada, the National Eating Disorder Information Centre (NEDIC)