Eating disorders are a psychological issue, often caused by depression, anxiety and low self esteem. They can lead to people restricting their food intake. They can lead to people purging the food they consume. So, it makes sense for such issues to cause binge eating too – another situation where someone’s relationship with food is impacted as a result of psychological problems. While many people have heard of bulimia nervosa (an eating disorder where somebody binge eats and then purges), Binge Eating Disorder tends to be discussed much less frequently.
Symptoms of Binge Eating Disorder (BED) include:
- feeling out of control when eating
- excessive food consumption
- eating until uncomfortably full
- eating secretively
- feelings of guilt or distress regarding eating
People with Binge Eating Disorder also may be very concerned about their appearance, have mood swings and lie about how much they have eaten. While the eating behaviours of Binge Eating Disorder differ to those of certain eating disorders, the psychological reasons behind them are very much the same.
Eating disorder information website Something Fishy says:
“Binges [can be] a way to hide from their emotions, to fill a void they feel inside, and to cope with daily stresses and problems in their lives. Binging can be used as a way to keep people away, to subconsciously maintain an overweight appearance to cater to society’s sad stigma “if I’m fat, no one will like me,” as each person suffering may feel undeserving of love… binging can also be used as self-punishment for doing “bad” things, or for feeling badly about themselves.”
Fran has issues with binge eating.
“[During a binge I feel] elated, yet numbed, I feel like it’s the answer to all of my problems, and I’ve done the right thing. After a binge I feel ashamed, like I’ve done something really wrong…it goes beyond “I shouldn’t have done that”, it’s more like I deserve to be punished.”
However, she’s found little medical support:
“I went to the doctor who diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder, because he said it was nothing to do with weight and therefore not an eating disorder. Because of that I feel like I can’t go back to try and get any more help.”
Since Binge Eating Disorder has severe mental and physical consequences it’s vital that it is recognised and taken seriously as other eating disorders are. People with Binge Eating Disorder suffer psychologically just as much as people with other eating disorders.
But just like other eating disorders, Binge Eating Disorder can be treated successfully. It’s completely possible for people to fully recover.
How do you think awareness of Binge Eating Disorder can be raised?
EDucation: Explaining Eating Disorders 
I definitely think awareness of Binge Eating Disorder needs to be raised, as many assume that if a person is eating a lot, then there’s no way they can have an eating disorder, as Fran said, “it was nothing to do with weight and therefore not an eating disorder”. I hadn’t even heard of Binge Eating Disorder before reading this, so I’m sure that means that many others my age haven’t either. Maybe it should be made more apparent to people from a younger age, I remember when eating disorders were mentioned (briefly) at secondary school, only anorexia and bulimia were discussed. Young people aren’t getting the full picture that they need to.
I have heard of Binge Eating Disorder, however, I feel there are strong negative associations with Binge Eating Disorder, i.e. fat is frowned and obsessed with in our society and this can make it harder for the public to understand. Perhaps a documentary on the BBC would be beneficial and raise awareness and easily accessible links and websites for those wanting to find out more.
I am the Fran from the article, and I am glad that the people who have commented so far seem to be more educated by the whole article. I helped with this article because I really feel that people don’t recognise binge eating disorder, and a lot of people who I have encountered when discussing “fat people” won’t even consider the fact that those people may have an eating disorder. I had a discussion tonight, completely randomly, with my boyfriend and his brother, and although both were open to the idea of a binge eating disorder, or the idea of compulsive overeating, to name another rarely discussed eating disorder, they still couldn’t get the way they had been brought up out of their head- that to be larger than average is one’s own fault, and it’s a simple “cutting down on food” is the way to get away from anything like that.
The weirdest thing is that they were quite happy to understand anorexia and bulimia as disorders, and to be fair to them, they were trying to understand binge eating and compulsive eating as eating disorders, but because they, as most of us (in the UK at least, in my experience) have been led to believe that “fat” is the same as “lazy” and “eating too much”/ “eating the wrong stuff”, it was very difficult for them to actually understand it
As an aside, I managed to confess to my boyfriend’s brother that I have had binge eating disorder and bulimia, which was difficult, but something I felt I needed to do. My boyfriend did already know about it, and congratulated me on telling someone else.
So, thank you for reading the article 🙂