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For many years the topic of a “binge” was linked directly to binge drinking. However, more and more the issue of a binge is linked to eating - - binge -eating. Many people will use the term binge to descibe a particular episode of over eating during a specific evening out or a large meal; made a slip on a diet plan; or to describe there eating activites while on a holiday. What will be described in this section of planet-therapy signifies a much larger problem. Binge-eating can be described as a complete lack of eating control whereby the person experieinces that they can not stop their eating. A binge is eating within a short period of time (roughly two hours) an amount of food that is of a significant quantity and that the majority of other people would not, and could not eat, in the same period of time. It is the persons inability to control the eating that seperates them from others who merely just ocassionally over eat. People who are involved in binge eating do not take measures to throw up their food as a person who struggles with bulimia might. In fact a common misconception is that binge eaters are all overweight. Only about half of people taken over by binge eating are overweight. However, some binge eaters have reported that they have taken—or plan to take—extreme measures to reduce their weight by way of surgeries such as stomach stapling and liposuction. The affects of binge eating seems to transcend age, culture, gender and class. Unlike other disordered eating problems like anorexia and bulimia, binge eating is more evenly distributed among men and women, between young an old, between rich and poor and between people of colour and caucasions. Central to binge-eating is the feeling of not being in control.
Many people in my therapy groups descibe an anxious period of time
prior to the advent of the binge. They describe how their “thoughts
are taken over” by a compelling need for food.
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