Binge eating and over-eating: What's the difference?
Recently I talked about binge-eating disorder (BED) being the most widespread of eating disorders. But when it comes to binge eating, I suspect there are few of us who haven't gone on a binge from time to time. You know, like that time you polished off the entire tray of brownies, or you put away five slices of pizza in one sitting. But binge-eating disorder is vastly different from 'normal' overeating. Here are some key differences, according to Psych Central:
- Those with BED feel very ashamed when they overeat. If there's no onslaught of emotion after the binge, it's not BED
- Those with BED don't like to binge in public/
- When it's BED, the binges occur frequently -- at least twice a week for six months
- Those who suffer from BED don't feel physiological cues like hunger or fullness - they're more focused on emotional cues.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-17-2007 @ 6:18PM
marie said...
I was diagnosed with Binge-eating disorder. It is definitely horrible to have. I live with my boyfriend and hid this from him for the first year we lived together. He was so concerned that I had a thyroid problem because I was putting on so much weight, yet he never saw me eat. I would order a medium pizza w/ cinna-sticks on the way home from work and eat the whole thing before getting home, and trash the evidence, so he didn't know. I would sneak food off to work and hide eating it at my desk. I could go on about what I would do, but let's just say i was out of control. I put on 50 pounds in a year. It was impossible for me to diet because i kept resorting back to binging in private. I don't know HOW I did it, but 5 months ago, I started writing my thoughts in a diary everytime I wanted to binge, and I haven't had a binge in 5 months, and have thus lost 50 pounds in 5 months.
This disease takes over your life when you have it and is heartbreaking. Thank you for writing about this.
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