One family-size box of cereal. A package of cookies. A large bag of potato chips. A gallon of ice cream. A frozen pizza. While this may seem like a weekly grocery list, it could be just one afternoon’s worth of food for someone suffering from binge eating disorder.
“When you start a binge, you go into a zone and don’t even know you’re doing it,” said Nancy Merrill, co-director of the SMU Memorial Health Center, who works with binge eating disorder patients. “It’s like you don’t even know how much you’re eating.”
Binge eating disorder is characterized by frequent episodes of eating large amounts of food. A recent study by the Harvard University-affiliated McLean Hospital named binge eating disorder the most prevalent of all eating disorders, affecting 3.5 percent of women and 2 percent of men.
“It’s not someone just overeating. It’s frenzied eating,” said Mandy Golman, a SMU Wellness instructor. “I can walk by my Oreo jar and grab one then later come back by and have another and do that all afternoon. Before you know it, I’ve eaten an entire row – but that’s not it. It’s eating a box of Oreos, then a bag of chips, then something else.”
During a binge, someone could eat anywhere from 3,500 to 10,000 or more calories over the course of an hour or more. People suffering from the disorder eat “huge, unbelievable amounts of food,” according to Merrill.
“I knew people ate a lot, but I was thinking like 2,000 calories at one sitting, so that actually really surprises me,” said senior Jane Walker.
Natalie, a 31-year-old teacher who suffered from binge eating disorder from high school until about a year ago, told CNN in a Feb. 24 report that one of her largest binges included “two pints of ice cream, a sleeve of Ritz crackers with peanut butter, Triscuits, some cheese from the refrigerator, maybe some cream cheese straight out of the carton, maybe some mayonnaise right out of the jar.”
The disorder is anxiety and depression driven, according to Golman, who has a master’s degree in health education administration from Texas Women’s University and bachelor’s degrees in psychology and biology from the University of Texas Austin.
“It’s numbing,” she said. “They can be angry at themselves for the binge instead of dealing with the actual issue.”
Binge eating disorder is extremely secretive. Binges happen in private, and people with it often eat normally in public.
“I would maybe eat lunch with friends and eat a normal-sized lunch,” said Natalie, who asked her last name be left out of the CNN report. “And then after lunch, when the people would leave, I would go and get more food and I would eat until I was very full or just couldn’t eat anymore.”
People suffering from the disorder experience shame.
“They go to three or four grocery stores to get their ice cream,” Merrill said.
Natalie would buy small amounts of food at different grocery stores so no one would see her buying large amounts of food, according to the CNN report.
Golman said a major warning sign that someone has the disorder is finding missing or hidden food.
“I’ll have parents call and tell me they found candy wrappers in the bathroom or in bedrooms. That’s a red flag that there is a problem,” she said.
There are health consequences associated with binge eating disorder. Obesity and the diseases that accompany it, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, gall bladder disease, heart disease and some cancers are common. People with binge eating disorder are typically at average or above average weights, unlike anorexics, who are generally underweight.
“With true binging, to be at a normal weight, you’d have to purge,” Golman said.
Many people with eating disorders cycle through all three – anorexia, which is characterized by low body weight and a fear of gaining weight; bulimia, which includes episodes of consuming large quantities of food followed by purges; and binge eating.
“Some people start with anorexia, but when they can’t keep it up they move to binging and purging. They may find a way out of the purging, but cannot stop the binging,” Golman said.
The study on eating disorders found that bulimia and binge eating have a longer duration than anorexia, with 8.3 and 8.1 years respectively compared to 1.7 for anorexia.
“Everyone knows about anorexia and bulimia; however, binge eating disorder affects more people, is often associated with severe obesity and tends to persist longer,'” said study author James Hudson, M.D., in a Feb. 1 press release on the study’s findings.
“It surprises me that it lasts that long, and I wonder if it is because it’s not recognized and treated in our society,” Walker said.
There is a high correlation between people with the disorder and people who have experienced sexual abuse.
“They are stuffing down the self-loathing that many victims feel,” Golman said. “Victims often think it’s their fault, especially if they were children.”
Societal pressures drive eating disorders in some individuals.
“College women are young and body conscious,” Merrill said. “It’s worse in some places, and at SMU people are very concerned with how they look.”
Treatment for binge eating disorder includes therapy and medication in some cases. Cognitive-behavioral therapy helps retrain people and gives them tools to break the cycles of binge eating.
“Get help,” said Golman. “Millions have binge eating disorder, and they don’t have to deal with it alone. Society puts so much pressure on us. Women often feel horrible and medicate with food.”
