Three Myths About Overcoming Binge Eating You Need To Know!
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Do you find yourself constantly thinking about food, bingeing on certain foods, or unable to control yourself around food? If so, you may be struggling with binge eating or binge eating disorder.
There’s so much confusion and myths around binge eating, and this confusion leads to many people experiencing a lot of guilt and shame because they can’t figure out how to stop binge eating. Stigmatizing myths about binge eating are harmful to you, harmful to your relationship with food and your body, and harmful to your recovery from binge eating and binge eating disorder. Identifying and debunking these myths are crucial to healing your relationship with food, bringing more awareness to the binge eating experience, regaining a sense of ease at mealtime and overcoming binge eating or binge eating disorder.
What is binge eating and how is it defined?
A binge eating episode is defined as” eating an unusually large amount of food (larger than many individuals would consume in the same given circumstances) in a discrete period of time". Binge eating is usually accompanied by a sense of lack of control over what is being eaten.
How do you know if you’re binge eating?
You may be experiencing binge eating if you:
Feel a lack of control over the food that you are consuming
Eat rapidly and quickly until you are uncomfortably full
Eat alone or secretively out of shame or embarrassment
Eat even when you’re not hungry
Eat more than you’d like of certain foods that you often try to restrict
Feel depressed, guilty or anxious about your eating habits
It’s important to note that an episode of binge eating is different from a perceived binge. A perceived binge is when you feel like you’ve binged, but in reality, the amount of food eaten doesn’t meet criteria for a formal binge-eating episode. A perceived binge may be accompanied by feelings of guilt or shame and feel similar. For example, a perceived binge is a common experience in eating disorder/disordered eating recovery.
No matter if you experience a perceived binge or an actual binge, it can lead to you feeling like you’ve done something wrong and/or there’s something wrong with you. This experience often leads to more food restriction, more dieting and more exercise behaviors that keep you stuck in the binge eating cycle.
Additionally, there are some instances in which the frequency of binge eating fits criteria for an eating disorder called Binge Eating Disorder.
What is Binge eating disorder?
Binge eating disorder is diagnosed by the following criteria:
Recurrent binge eating episodes
Experience of 3 or more of the characteristics of binge eating (see above for definition)
Recurring bingeing at least once a week for 3 months
The binge eating does not occur in the context of other eating disorders
Binge eating disorder is the most common and least talked about eating disorder! According to the National Eating Disorder Association, binge eating disorder is three times more common than anorexia or bulimia combined. This means that for every person that struggles with anorexia or bulimia, three more people struggle with binge eating disorder!
If you experience bingeing episodes or have been diagnosed with binge eating disorder, you deserve the help from a support anti-diet dietitian to help you recover and to no longer suffer with your relationship to food. Understanding and knowing the signs that it’s time to start binge eating disorder treatment can be helpful.
If binge eating is the most common eating disorder, why is nobody talking about it?
Diet-culture holds such a tight grasp on our society and media, and therefore it’s able to construct a narrative about which eating disorders deserve care and what eating disorders “look like”. This narrative tells you that certain eating disorders are better, more socially acceptable, and more common than other eating disorders. Additionally, a lot of what leaves suffers of binge eating disorder feeling alone is medical weight bias and fat phobia.
While binge eating disorder is very common and is often overlooked due to weight stigma and weight-based discrimination, it’s important to note that you DON’T need to have an eating disorder diagnosis OR qualify for an eating disorder to get support. At Bravespace Nutrition, we believe that if you have chaos in the brain around food and your body, you deserve support!
How do you break the cycle of binge eating and stop binge eating once and for all?
While stopping the cycle and pattern of binge eating is multifactorial and complex, it’s helpful to start with the myths about binge eating. These myths are the reasons why people people don’t seek out support, feel afraid of sharing information about their struggles and/or are ignored when they tell someone in their life that they are suffering with binge eating.
Myth #1: Only those in larger bodies experience binge eating.
Unfortunately, we live in a society where weight discrimination and weight bias are extremely prevalent. You have been taught by diet culture to believe that your weight dictates your eating patterns and visa versa. This myth ascribes eating behaviors to someone’s body size, when in reality, body size is so much more complex than this because body size is NOT a behavior.
Body size is determined by many different things, like your genetics, socioeconomic status, access to food, geographical location, and so many other factors.
Additionally, many MANY medical professionals (doctors, therapists, physical therapists, chiropractors, dietitians, nurses, etc.) are guilty of weight bias and weight discrimination. When people feel judged by healthcare providers or loved ones because of their weight, they’re less likely to seek and receive the help that they need for eating disorder and disordered eating treatment. If you feel like you are unheard by any clinician in your life because of your weight, it is important for you to understand that you deserve better and it may be time to change your doctor, if possible.
The truth is: Your body size doesn’t dictate eating behaviors. People who exist in smaller bodies can experience binge eating and binge eating disorder, just as people who exist in larger bodies can experience binge eating disorder or binge eating. Eating disorders can exist anywhere on the spectrum of body sizes.
Myth #2: Binge eating is an issue of overeating and lack of control.
Despite what you may have been told, most people who experience binge eating are also often engaging in a lot of food restriction, dieting, and/or are carrying around food rules of the past. Despite binge eating episodes being experiences of “overeating”, it’s important to take a look at everything that’s happening when you’re not binge eating to understand what’s driving the experience you’re having starting with food restriction.
Food restriction can show up in different ways including:
giving yourself limited access to a food or food group
restricting how much of a food you have in one setting and/or through the day
avoiding a particular food or food group in general
Mental restriction such as telling yourself you should limit your quantity of a food, not bringing a food (s) into your home, denying yourself certain food/food groups because you’ve “had too much”
Diet culture tells you that the solution to overeating and binge eating is extreme dieting and restriction. Diet culture says, “You have a problem, let’s give you a plan to fix it!” But the truth is, restricting certain foods/food groups only heightens your awareness of that food until it’s all you can think about and then when you eat that food, you feel out of control. Restriction also leads to more cycles of binge eating and something called the “last supper mentality”.
What’s the “last supper” mentality?
The last supper mentality happens when you don’t allow yourself to eat certain foods (this can also be driven by not having access to food) and then when you’re finally allowed to have that food, you end up eating more than you’d intended because it feels like the last time you’ll have it! Then the next day after the binge eating takes place, you’re filled with self-blame and frustration.
Let’s talk through an example: Suppose you frequently find yourself bingeing on pizza. Diet-culture tells you that pizza is bad for you, so you try to stop eating it. You cut pizza out of your life entirely even though it is one of your favorite foods! You avoid eating pizza until one day you attend a birthday party where pizza is being served for dinner. You try to ignore your hunger cues and your salivating mouth by trying to drink a glass of water, but quickly it becomes the only thing you can think about. You decide to have one slice; “This is all I can have and all I need,” you say to yourself. But as soon as you finish, you notice you want more. You may even feel like you could eat the whole box! One slice becomes two, two becomes three, and on and on. You feel ashamed, guilty, and feel as if you’ve failed.
Sound familiar?!
This is the last supper mentality. It is your body’s biological response to food restriction, and it only perpetuates and worsens the binge eating.
If you can related to this experience or an experience like it, take an inventory of the foods you find yourself bingeing on, and ask yourself:
Do I restrict this food from my life?
Do I view this food as conventionally “unhealthy”?
Do I think of myself as an inherently bad person or a failure if I consume this food?
Do I crave this food significantly more than other foods?
Do I feel out of control whenever I consume this food?
If you can identify what foods you’re denying yourself, you can work on slowly incorporating those foods back into your life as a way to begin to address binge eating. Often ironically what allows for the binge eating cycles to stop is when you can acknowledge that restriction is root of the problem.
Myth #3: You won’t binge eat if you eat the “right, clean, whole and healthy” foods
There is a misconception that if your body receives the nutrition it “needs” (a.k.a. “healthy” foods), that you will no longer binge on the foods that you may be afraid of eating or those “unhealthy” foods. Even if your body gets all of the essential nutrients to survive, you can still experience binge eating! In fact, in most people’s experience this is true. But why, if you’re getting everything your body needs, would you still be bingeing?
Because you need more than just the essentials when it comes to food in order to feel a sense of satisfaction. Things like variety, pleasure, enjoyment, spontaneity, and joy all matter very much in the eating experience.
The reality is, no program or meal plan that tells you to restrict foods is going to prevent you from binge eating in the long-term. Most likely it will only worsen your binge eating episodes and keep you stuck feeling like there’s something wrong with you. While it can feel radical to eat more food and more consistently to stop binge eating, this is often part of what needs to happen to heal and recover from binge eating and binge eating disorder.
You’ll also love:
What is Binge Eating Disorder Treatment? On Why It’s Not Another Diet
The Restrict-Binge-Shame Cycle: 3 Ways to Stop Binge Eating
Does Deprivation Lead to Binge Eating
Dietitian Busts Common Myths About How to Stop Binge Eating
Signs it's Time to Start Binge Eating Disorder Treatment
Looking for treatment for binge eating disorder in Seattle, WA?
Our eating disorder dietitian nutritionists want to help support you in healing your relationship to food and helping you to recover from frequent binge eating and binge eating disorder. You don’t need to suffer alone anymore and what you’re experiencing is not your fault. Reach out to a caring dietitian today starting your journey to food healing! Get support today by contacting us.