By Catherine Bishop

Most people do not enjoy binge eating and try very hard to stop this behaviour, but there are many things that can keep people stuck in this cycle.  Here are five key reasons (although of course there are others and these will be different for everyone):

1.       You are hungry.  One of the biggest contributors to bingeing is not eating regularly throughout the day, this is why most people find themselves bingeing in the afternoons or evenings rather than the mornings.  If you have big gaps between your eating your brain will assume that either there is a shortage of food or you have forgotten how to eat and will respond with encouraging you to eat more to make up for this.  This is your brain working effectively to try to keep you alive.  The catch-22 situation here is that many people respond to bingeing by eating less the next day to make up for the binge, which of course results in the cycle repeating itself.

2.       You have strict rules about food.  Healthy eating is flexible and includes a range of food groups.  No food is inherently “good” or “bad” it just depends on how much we eat of it.  The top of the food pyramid is called “eat less often” not eat never!  Often people find that they will binge on foods that they consider “forbidden.” Having broken the rule around this food, people often then will continue to eat it, a kind of “stuff it” mentality.  We call this the abstinence violation effect if you want to put a technical term to it.  In addition a whole lot of stuff happens with your brain and body chemicals when you binge on certain foods that also increases the chances of additional times of bingeing and overeating (more on this another time as there is a bit to tell you about this one). So really it would be better to allow a variety of foods as part of regular eating, you’ll find you are moving the calories you would eat in a binge elsewhere or actually eating less calories overall than if you are continuing the patterns that encourage binge eating.     

3.       You don’t know how to manage your emotions and stressful experiences.  For many people, bingeing occurs in response to strong emotions and stressful life events - and by the way this can be both positive and negative experiences, yes having a holiday and moving into your dream home are counted as stressors!  Understanding what types of emotions and stressful experiences trigger binge eating can be a helpful way of then exploring alternatives to using food to managing this.

4.       You plan on getting rid of it.  Many people will “allow” themselves to have a binge knowing that they plan to use a method of compensation to get rid of the food they have eaten.  This may be through vomiting, use of laxatives, over-exercising and so on.  The issue with this is that these methods are not effective and are actually quite dangerous (more on this later in other blog posts).  Continuing to use such methods can increase the likelihood of ongoing bingeing.  Try waiting for 5-10 minutes (or less if this feels too long) before acting on urges to compensate while engaging in a distracting activity and see if this starts to pass.

5.       You place a lot of importance on shape, weight, and appearance.  Focus on these things also increases focus on trying to control these through changes in diet and possible compensation, which as we have talked about above keeps the cycle going.  Trying to expand other important areas of your life such as spending more time with friends and family or finding hobbies to do can help here.

If you are struggling with binge eating, psychologists can assist you to learn strategies to break this nasty cycle. 

Catherine Bishop is a Clinical Psychologist at Healthy Mind Centre Launceston.