Binge eating disorder

Binge eating disorder involves recurrent episodes of eating that feel out of control, often accompanied by distress, shame or secrecy. What is less visible is everything that can happen around those episodes: trying to compensate by eating less the next day, repeatedly starting a new diet, avoiding certain foods, eating very little earlier in the day, or promising yourself that this time will be different. These attempts to regain control are understandable, but they can become part of the very cycle they are trying to solve.

Binge eating can also serve a function beyond hunger. Food may temporarily soothe, numb, distract or provide relief from difficult emotions, stress or overwhelm. For some people this is central to the pattern; for others, restriction and disrupted eating are much more important. Treatment therefore starts by understanding your cycle rather than assuming that everyone binge eats for the same reason.

The work is not about putting you on another diet or teaching you greater self-control. Evidence-based treatment focuses on establishing more regular and flexible eating, reducing restriction and food rules, understanding triggers, and working with the thoughts, emotions and behaviours that keep binge eating going. Where appropriate, nutritional intervention can form part of this work too.

Binge eating disorder can occur in people of any body size. Weight does not tell us whether someone has an eating disorder, nor how much they are struggling. You also do not need to wait until binge eating is happening at a particular frequency or your life feels completely overtaken by it before asking for help. If eating, or thinking about eating, is taking up room that the rest of your life needs, that is enough.