What is Binge Eating?

Binge eating is characterized by compulsively eating a large quantity of food in a short time, often to the point of getting very uncomfortable or even sick. Binges are typically accompanied by feelings of guilt, shame, and regret. 

Some people don’t resonate with the term “binge eating” because it might feel too clinical or severe. This is why I often replace the term binge eating with “eating past the point of comfortable fullness.” I find this way of describing episodes of overeating much more objective, as oftentimes, clients get hung up on whether or not their behaviors qualify as a binge.

To me, as an intuitive eating dietitian, I’m not so concerned with the technicalities as to whether or not you’re experiencing a binge based on the clinical definition. The bottom line is, if you’re eating to the point of feeling uncomfortable and it’s impacting the quality of your life, you deserve support and resources for healing.

So, for the rest of this blog post, know that when I say “binge eating” I’m talking about any experience where you’re eating to the point of feeling physically uncomfortable in your body. 

In this blog post, we’ll talk about:

• Who is affected by binge eating
• Food scarcity (perceived & real)
• Restriction (physical & mental)
• The Hunger/ fullness pendulum
• Issues Identifying fullness cues
• When food tastes too good to stop
• Emotional eating
• The clean plate club
• 7 tips to combat binge eating

Who is Affected by Binge Eating? 

Binge eating can affect anyone, but it is especially prevalent in young women and folks in larger bodies, as these groups tend to face additional societal pressure to manipulate their body size perpetuating the binge/ restrict cycle. 

It’s also common among people who have type 1 and type 2 diabetes, which may be due to the pressure that comes with constant food monitoring. 

Growing up in a household where you were criticized for your food choices, having family members who experience binge eating, and having a history of dieting are all risk factors for developing binge eating.

What are the Causes of Binge Eating?

There are several different causes of binge eating, but for the sake of this post, we’ll go through the 7 most common causes I see when working with clients in my private practice including: food scarcity, restriction, primal hunger, difficulty identifying fullness cues, The Sadness of Saying Enough, Emotional Eating, and the “Clean Plate Club.”  

Let’s comb through these one by one👇

Food Scarcity

Binge eating can be caused by having a history of limited food access, or food scarcity.

Food scarcity can be “true” food scarcity or perceived. “True” food scarcity is when your access to food is limited due to financial constraints or physical access. 

Perceived food scarcity is when you have financial and physical access to ample food, but your brain perceives that food is scarce due to self-imposed food rules or diet plans.

Whether it’s real or true or perceived food scarcity, in times where food is scarce, your body’s natural instinct is to eat large quantities of energy-dense (aka calorie-dense) foods. This human instinct can often lead to binges  when available to store nutrients for the next period of “fasting” (aka, dieting). This may result in feeling uncomfortably full, along with guilt and shame.

Restriction

Having a history of restriction– in the form of diets or “lifestyle plans” – can lead to The Last Supper Mentality, a phenomenon where you eat a lot of food (binge) because your body feels like another diet is around the corner. 

It’s common for binges it occur before starting a diet, since your body knows it’s the last opportunity  you’ll allow yourself to eat what you crave.

Restriction can be physical or mental. Physical restriction looks like actually limiting your access to certain foods (i.e not keeping ice cream, cookies, chips, in the house because they are off limits)/

Mental restriction, often a remnant that lingers even when lifting physical restriction, it when you give yourself access to all foods, but you place certain stipulations or rules around eating that food (i.e I can have ice cream in the house but I’m only allowed to have a single spoonful).

Both physical and mental restriction can result in the desire to rebel, resulting in a binge.

Getting Too Hungry

Diet culture promotes this idea that it’s a good thing to get as hungry as possible, but this isn’t true. If you wait until you’re ravenous to start eating, it’s more likely– almost guaranteed–  you’ll overeat and become too full. 

The way hunger and fullness works can be visualized by imagining a pendulum; If you pull the pendulum too far  in the direction of hunger, it’s your body’s natural compensatory response to swing equally in the opposite direction, landing you in a state of being  too full. 

Plus, when you’re so hungry, it’s common to eat quickly in order to satisfy that feeling. Eating rapidly can lead you to miss your fullness cues and eat past comfortable fullness.

Difficulty Identifying Fullness Cues 

If you’ve been outsourcing your eating decisions to exterior metrics – calorie tracking apps, diets, and other rules– it’s likely that you’re out of practice connecting with your body’s cues. This can result in overeating or binging because you’re not able to decipher your body’s signals, so you don’t know how to respond accordingly.

Food Tastes Too Good to Stop

Sometimes, when we’re eating, the experience can be so pleasurable that we don’t want it to end. Even when your body signals to you that you’re full, it can be hard to put the fork down because you’re enjoying the tastes and textures so much.

This situation, coined “The Sadness of Saying Enough,” by Elyse Resch, presents two options. The first option is to continue eating, because you don’t want to experience the sadness of stopping. The second option is to stop when you reach comfortable fullness, feel the momentary sadness, and let it pass.

In either scenario, you’ll have to go through some degree of discomfort. In the first scenario, the discomfort of overeating will likely last the rest of the day, and maybe even into the next morning, in the case of a food hangover. But, in the second scenario, the discomfort of feeling the sadness that comes with stopping, will likely only last a few minutes before passing.

If you’re not practiced at sitting with the sadness that comes with stopping, it’s likely that you’ll continuously choose option 1; eating past comfortable fullness or binge eating.

Emotional Eating 

When we want to continue eating, but we’re no longer hungry, we have to ask ourselves, ”what other need am I trying to get met through this food?” There is nothing wrong with emotional eating– food is inherently emotional. But, if we try to use food as our sole coping tool, we’ll likely end up overeating as there are  many needs– connection, novelty, intellectual stimulation–  that food can’t fulfill on it’s own.

Clean Plate Club 

If your parents ever told you to be part of the “Clean Plate Club” at dinner when you couldn’t finish a meal, this could cause overeating later in life. Growing up in a household that enforced this rule can result in a betrayal of our bodies’ fullness cues. Trying to reduce food waste is a great goal, but it can lead to disconnection with body cues resulting in eating past comfortable fullness.