Binge is a short period devoted to indulging an activity to the excess, especially drinking alcohol or eating. Binge eating is an eating disorder characterized by consuming large quantities of food over a short period of time on a regular basis. The symptoms of binge eating usually begin as you approach adulthood from adolescence. In most binge eating cases you will get to crave for food to eat which lasts for two hours but in exception cases you can binge the whole day. Overeating is regular and uncontrollable.
Binge eating comes with many characteristics both common and some unique to each person. How do you know you are binge eater? The features to watch out for are vast and are both unique to each person. The two key characteristics to know you are a binge eater are:
- Eating very large amounts of food in a short period of time
- Feeling a sense of loss of control while eating.
The signs can range to behavioral, physical and psychological symptoms. The behavioral signs can include:
- Eating when you’re full or not hungry.
- Lacking the courage to talk about your feelings and feeling isolated.
- Eating alone in isolation from others.
- Unexplained disappearance of food – hiding binge eating episodes
- Being secretive behavior around food
- Evading questions about weight and eating
- You become antisocial and withdrawn
- You start spending large amounts of money on food or you start shoplifting food
- Self-harming behavior.
Physical symptoms of binge eating:
- Feeling tired.
- Not sleeping well.
- Feeling bloated or constipated.
- Rapid weight gain.
- Gaining and losing weight repeatedly.
- Eating large amounts of food.
Psychological signs and symptoms can include:
- Obsession with eating, food or body image
- You are sensitive to comments about dieting, exercise, body image or food
- Feeling guilt, shame and self-loathing, especially after a binge eating episode
- Feeling sadness, extreme distress especially after a binge eating episode
- A distorted body image or dissatisfaction with your body shape
- Low self-esteem, depression, irritability or anxiety.
- Feeling your binge eating behavior is out of control.
You also tend to have:
- Fluctuations in weight.
- Loss of sexual desire.
- Frequent dieting.
Ask yourself this questions the more “yes” answers the more likely it is that you are a binge eater.
- Do you feel out of control when you’re eating?
- Do you eat in secret?
- Do you eat to comfort yourself, relieve stress, or escape from worries?
- Do you think about food all the time?
- Do you fell your eating habits are out of control and you are powerless to stop them?
- Do you eat until you feel sick?
Binge eating disorder doesn’t get better by itself and may worsen if left untreated. A person with binge eating disorder can hide his or her behaviors making it hard to detect and maybe help. If you have a loved one you think may have symptoms of binge eating have an open and honest talk about your concerns. You may also offer support and encouragement. If you yourself suspect you are binge eater find a person you trust can help. A friend, loved one, teacher or a religious leader can help you take the first steps towards a successful treatment of binge eating.
CAUSES OF BINGE EATING
It’s not clear what causes binge eating, but like most cases its seen as a way of coping with feelings of unhappiness and low self-esteem. It takes your experience, emotions and genes to develop a binge eating disorder. Generally the causes of binge eating are:
- Biological.
- Social and cultural.
- Physiological.
- Physical changes.
Biological
Biological abnormalities can contribute to binge eating. For example the hypothalamus, the hypothalamus is the part of the brain that controls appetite. When your hypothalamus is not sending correct messages about hunger and fullness you will tend to even when full or eat more than the required amount.
Different neurotransmitters are also involved in eating disorders. Neurotransmitters carry messages from cell to cell around the brain and nervous system. The effect of a neurotransmitter depends on the type of receptor being stimulated and the part of the nervous system that receives it. A chemical called serotonin affects binging by making you crave on foods rich in carbohydrates. Numerous other hormones in the brain have also been linked to eating disorders.
Social and cultural
Social pressure can add to the shame making you a binge eater. To be thin can make you eat more fearing to be ridicule and in the process make you a binge eater. As parents using food to comfort, dismiss or reward our children slowly turns them into binge eaters.
Pathology in the family may also contribute to eating disorders. If you are a person with binge eating disorder it is possible you come from a family of negative behaviors, such as alcohol and drug abuse. Divorce, domestic violence and marital discord are also not uncommon family issues that tend to make you suffer with an eating disorder. You can also turn to binge eating after you have experienced a family trauma such as neglect, physical or sexual abuse.
Physiological
Binge eating and depression are strongly linked. Many binge eaters are either depressed or have been before; you may have trouble with impulse control and managing to express your feelings. Loneliness, low self-esteem and body dissatisfaction may also contribute to you becoming a binge eater.
Physical changes
Physical changes can also influence you to become a binge eater. During puberty most of us tend to eat more, this crave to eat is meant to help the body develop into maturity. After the puberty stage is over most of us are left addicted to food.
EFFECTS OF BINGE EATING
Binge eating is exhausting, demoralizing and disruptive. It can produce unhealthy weight gain and can increase the risk for diseases. It is also associated with serious physiological problems, including anxiety and depression disorders. These feelings can be made worse over time while you are still binge eating.
A very common physical effect of binge eating is weight gain which can also lead to obesity. Obesity can put you at risk of a number of related physical problems which can be life threatening. These include:
- High cholesterol and high blood pressure which can increase of the risk of stroke, coronary heart diseases or other cardiovascular diseases affecting you in the future.
- Diabetes – a long term condition that causes your blood sugar level to become too high.
- Osteoarthritis – this is the most common type of arthritis. It occurs when the protective cartilage on the end of your bones wears down over time. It has no cure when it worsens staying active and maintain a normal health diet can improve your condition slowly.
- Some types of cancer like breast and bowel cancer can affect you.
- Gastrointestinal problems – in this condition, digestion of foods can be reduced so fewer nutrients are converted into usable form.
- Sleep apnoea – it is a type of sleep disorder in characterised by shallow or infrequent breathing during sleep.
- Gall bladder disease – bile in the gallbladder becomes concentrated and thickens. Gallstones are born out of this sludge from bile salts and cholesterol.
Binge eating also have profound impact on you as a person. You may lose confidence in the process of controlling the amount of food you intake. This lack of control quickly spills over to other areas of life and can have dramatic ramifications on your career, school and relationships with friends and family.
TREATMENT OF BINGE EATING
Like most eating disorders, treatment for binge eating needs to help both your physical and mental health. Early treatment is the best way to get you to the path of full recovery. The journey can be difficult but you can get there with the right help and your commitment. Continuing a healthy habit at home can get you closer to binge cure. Some of the methods to help you fight binge eating are:
- Develop a plan to ensure you eat a balanced diet
- Become more physically active
- Take care of yourself
- Interpersonal psychotherapy
- Being around people you like, avoid being alone
- Just take a walk if the urge to eat is too much
- Drink plenty of water and keep having nutritious and tasty food
- Express your feelings by talking to friends and family
- Listen to your body
- Take time to chew your food
- Eat with others whenever possible
- Avoiding free time and boredom
- Avoid skipping meals
- Moderation is key.
Develop a plan to ensure you eat a balanced diet.
A balanced is one that gives your body the nutrition it needs to function properly. To achieve a healthy diet plan, think of it as a number of small manageable steps rather than one big drastic change. If you approach the changes gradually and with commitment you will have a healthy diet sooner than you think. The steps to achieve a balanced diet plan are:
- Simplify. Instead of being concerned with measuring portion sizes, think of your diet in terms of freshness, colour and variety, and it will be much easier to make healthy choices. Focus on finding foods you love and you can also incorporate fresh ingredients. After time your diet will become more delicious and healthy.
- Make slow changes to your eating habits and improve over time. Trying to make your diet healthy overnight is not smart is realistic because it usually leads you to cheating and causes you to give up on your new eating plan. Make small steps, for example you can add salad to your diet once a day and once your small changes become habit, you can continue and try more healthy choices.
- Every change matter. You do not have to eliminate foods you enjoy or be perfect to have a healthy diet. The long term goal to all this is to fell good, have more energy and live a free binge eating life. So always remember every healthy food choice you make counts.
Become more physically active.
Becoming physically active can help you curb binge eating. When your mind is pre occupied in doing something else you rarely think of eating or doing other things that might affect your body. The following steps can help you become more physically active:
- Join an exercise group or enrol yourself in a sport teams or sport lessons
- Choose an activity that into your daily life
- Give yourself a gold star with non-food related rewards, such as family day, school sports day or other activities.
The benefits of lifelong exercise are many and regular exercise may even help you make healthier food choices.
Take care of yourself.
Pace yourself and try to spend time with other people who care about you.
Interpersonal psychotherapy.
This is a time limited treatment that encourages you to regain control of mood and functioning. Interpersonal therapy primary focuses on the way your relationships affect you. The following techniques can help you start your therapies:
- Identification of your emotions. For some us, accurately identifying the emotion we’re feeling can be difficult. Seeking help from a family member or a friend will look to help you identify emotions from an unbiased perspective.
- Express your emotions. This involves helping yourself to express your emotions in amore healthy way.
- Dealing with issues from the past. Sometimes relationships you had in the past can affect the way you interact in the present including our eating habits. Part of your interpersonal therapy may involve looking into your past to see if any patterns have formed.
Being around people you like, avoid being alone.
Being around people can help you stop binge eating by keeping your mind away from food. Normally if you are a binge eater you always eat in private and isolation.
Just take a walk if the urge to eat is too much.
You can control your binge eating activities by taking a walk when the urge suddenly comes. Keeping your mind occupied is the main aim of this exercise. When your mind is distracted you rarely crave to eat.
Drink plenty of water and keep having nutritious and tasty food.
There are differences between being thirsty and being hungry. When the feeling of binge eating comes drink some water, Drinking water helps you establish whether you are hungry or thirsty.
Lacking a nutritious diet makes you crave for certain foods and in the process may turn you into a binge eater. Including all foods in your diet is one of the ways to stop binge eating.
Express your feelings by talking to friends and family.
Expressing your emotions to your friends or family in a positive way can be one way towards a successive binge eating habit elimination. Your family and friends may help you and lend a hand where possible. Keeping your emotions inside may only worsen your situation.
Listen to your body.
During a meal stop eating before you fell full. It actually takes a few minutes for your brain to tell your body that it has had enough food.
Take time to chew your food.
Chewing breaks your food down from large particles into smaller particle that are more easily digested. Apart from aiding a smooth digestion chewing can slow down your eating habits.
Eat with others whenever possible.
Eating with others has numerous social and emotional benefits. It also allows you to model healthy eating habits. Eating in front of the TV or computer often leads to mindless overeating.
Avoiding free time and boredom.
Being temporary recluse can give you unwanted time to think about food and dieting which is not good. Avoiding free time is one of the ways to keep you out of binging for food. Weekends are the times you should mostly avoid free time
Avoid skipping meals.
Skipping meals is one of the causes unknown that causes binging. Staying during lunch to work and hoping to compensate your lunch time meal in the evening could turn you slowly into a binging person. You should carefully follow the normal eating timetable, that is three meals a day or create your own eating timetable which you are to follow strictly.
Moderation is key.
What is moderation? It means eating only as much food as your body needs. You should fell satisfied at the end of a meal. Moderation is also about balance,. We need a balance of carbohydrates, proteins, fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals to sustain a healthy body. The goal to develop a healthy eating habit is maintaining a diet, not only for a few weeks or until you have hit your ideal weight.
No one binges for no reason, look at yourself, find your triggers and address them. Believe in yourself and believe in all of you, you can do it, but it will take time.
Labels: Health
