Binge Eating Disorders Essay

Binge-eating disorder is defined as an eating disorder in which a person frequently consumes large amounts of food while feeling out of control and unable to stop. Almost everyone overeats every once in a while but for some people overeating crosses the line to binge-eating disorder and it becomes a regular occurrence. Many people who have this disorder may feel embarrassed about eating large amounts of food in front of others however the urge and compulsiveness of this disorder continues to affect their eating habits. Binge-eating disorder is estimated to affect approximately 1-5% of the general population and also tends to affect women slightly more often than men. Binge-eating disorder is often associated with symptoms of depression and people diagnosed with this may often express distress, shame, and guilt over their eating behaviors.

The research question and goal of this study was to determine how well cognitive-behavioral therapy can affect adolescents with binge-eating disorder in the way the same treatment affects adults. Before creating the design to answer this three hypotheses were purposed for the study. The first two hypotheses states that cognitive behavioral therapy would have greater benefits than the waiting-list in reducing the number of binge eating episodes and reducing the number of days with a binge eating episode. From these hypotheses they also concluded that with cognitive behavioral therapy there will be a decrease in depressive symptoms which will lead to an increase in self-esteem and quality of life. And, that a decrease in binge eating episodes will also lead to stabilizing adolescents body mass index. It is fair to assume or hypothesize that with a decrease in binge eating episodes that ...

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...iate cognitive-behavioral therapy manual was developed to help create a more affective type of therapy for adolescents with binge eating disorder. In other words the cognitive-behavioral therapy has been tailored for adolescents in this study and will not be treated in the same manner as an adult would. The most recent research about binge-eating disorder in adolescence shows that there is a lack of validated treatments for this age group. Cognitive-behavioral therapy for adults with binge eating disorder is the most used and most affective psychological treatment. Studies done for adults with binge-eating disorder who were treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy show a significant reduction in binge eating. Having adolescents undergo this kind of therapy that has shown significant results in adults and adapted to them is the best treatment possible for them.