My wild guess is you landed on this page while doing some search on how to overcome binge eating and live a normal life like every other person in your office, school, social cycle or community, or perhaps you jumped on this article or a friend shared the link with you. This article promises to leave you educated about binge eating and properly equipped with actionable steps that can be taken to recover from this eating disorder and live the free and exciting life that you so much wanted for yourself.
What is binge eating?
Binge eating is a type of eating disorder (among others like Bulimia and Anorexia) that is exhibited as a continuous uncontrollable and excessive consumption of large quantity of food (most times junk food and meals with little or no nutritional values i.e. a feast of empty calories) with or without a subsequent purging of the body after the episode.
What causes binge eating?
As simple and enticing as the word ‘binge eating’ might sound, it is actually become a very serious disorder sometimes leading to thoughts of suicides and great depression. What leads to this eating addiction or disorder?
Experts agree that binge eating disorder is caused by one or more of the following factors
· Psychological
· Biological and
· Environmental factors.
In the blog Eat Like A Normal Person, a very elaborate explanation of how these factors play out was given, where the experience of an eating addict was recounted.
Binge eating disorder is often caused by a failed diet program which causes the patient to indulge in eating all what he or she has been abstaining from, and therefore getting addicted with eating those foods, they consequently lose control over how they consume these foods and totally fall into the controlling arms of the urges to keep consuming these foods.
Stress and depression are also strong causes of Binge eating disorder. People suffering from extreme stress and depression fall to food as an escape from their emotional episodes; the eating process frees them of this emotional trauma, but comes back after the eating spree; and thus, the addict goes back, and continues going back to eating to ease him/herself from their emotions.
As this continuous, the addicts gradually losses their ability to control themselves against these eating disorder which most times lead to guilt, low self-worth and they recoiling to eating to ease these emotions. This whole cycle continues and the patients is tied down to this disorder.
What can binge eating disorder cause?
Like other addictions, they cannot do but keep eating, this causes a lot of social problems. The food which they end up consuming are most times high calorie and low nutrient food, and this often leads to obesity, which will heighten emotional trauma and depression and further indulgence in eating to ease the depression. Binge eating leads to a host of social, emotional and physical problems; stress, insomnia and depression are common with those living with this disorder.
Binge eating disorder might seem to be a labyrinth where getting lost is the only sure thing that happens, yet there is a way out of this labyrinth; a lot of recovery experiences and testimonies abound on a lot of blogs and forums. In her article on the thrive journal, Jennifer Joffe recounts how she recovered from binge eating.
Is there a cure for Binge Eating disorder?
A lot of remedies can be found in a lot of blogs, while some persons prescribe abstinence from junk or binge food, others recommend a more biological, psychological and physical approach to binge eating recovery. Migdalia Burgoin the creator and founder of Anointed Abbey, adopts a monastic program for binge eating recovery and believes that in the process of recovery from this eating disorder the mind and other spiritual activities like fasting and meditation are very effective while ensuring that the body is not starved or the patient made to abstain from their favorite meals or foo. She gave an elaborate explanation on how she came about this recovery method in an interview on the Business Innovators.