Binge Eating Disorder: A Common and Confusing Eating Disorder Often Rooted In Depression
When a person has a binge eating disorder, they eat very large amounts of food, and feel that they cannot control their eating habits. This happens to most people every now and then, but when truly excessive overeating happens many times, the person has a binge eating disorder.
Binge Eating Disorder Symptoms
Symptoms of binge eating disorder include:
- – feeling that your eating is out of control
- – eating when you’re not hungry
- – eating until you’re physically uncomfortable
- – eating large quantities of food for a long period of time, such as two hours
- – eating in secret
- – feeling depressed or ashamed about your eating
- – frequent dieting to offset the binging
How Binge Eating Differs From Bulimia
Binge eating is not like bulimia. After overeating, the person does not purge or use laxatives excessively.
What Causes Binge Eating Disorder
Researchers do not know the cause of binge eating disorder, but they now believed it is related to depression.
Anger, boredom and anxiety can trigger a binge eating episode. Patients also may have problems with impulse control.
Professional Treatment Helps Patients With Binge Eating Disorder
Binge eating disorder needs to be treated by a professional; a patient will not get better by him or herself, and may even get worse if not treated. However, treatment may take a while.
Generally, a complete psychological evaluation will diagnose your condition, which includes an honest discussion of eating habits.
Binge eaters will try to hide evidence of binging, hoarding food, or keeping food hidden in strange places. They may also wear loose-fitting clothing in an attempt to hide any changes in fluctuating weight, and to be more comfortable during binging episodes.
Binge eaters may not like to eat in front of others, and may constantly diet with no results.
Looking Toward the Future
Regularly meeting with a psychiatrist will help the binge eater learn how to identify their binge eating habits and replace them with healthy habits. With therapy, a binge eating patient can learn to cope better with trigger factors, such as a negative body image or depression.
The patient will feel better as they learn that they can control their behavior. Psychotherapy will also help you learn how to relate to other people in your life better–this will help control binge eating that is triggered by ineffective communication skills. The patient will learn other ways to tolerate stress.
Medication May Help With Binge Eating
There are now also some medicines that can help with binge eating. The FDA approves Vyvanse to treat serious cases of binge eating disorder. Use of this medicine needs to be carefully monitored by your psychiatrist. Topamax also reduces binge eating episodes, as do some antidepressants.