Binge Eating Disorder Analysis

Thin seems to be forever a trend amongst society. However, thin ignores healthy. People are overly concerned with what they eat, how much they eat, how small their waist is, and what size clothing they fit into. These unfortunate characteristics of society are contributing factors to dangerous mental illnesses that occur more often than we think. Ronald Comer (2014) states that in the past thirty years there has been increases in both patients with anorexia nervosa and patients with bulimia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are two eating disorders that are frequently heard of and are eating disorder that people are more aware of. However, there is another eating disorder that can sometimes slip under the bar; this is binge eating

The people with BED feel no control over their eating. In order to understand BED it is important to understand what a binge is. A binge is when someone eats large amounts of food in a short amount of time in comparison to others. The DSM-5 has specific criteria a person must fit to be diagnosed with BED. These criterion are; recurrent episodes of binge eating, significant distress regarding binge eating, binge eating that occurs at least once a week for three months, no pattern of inappropriate compensatory behavior, and binge eating episodes with three or more associated features. The associated features that someone would need to possess three or more of are; unusually rapid eating, eating until uncomfortably full, eating large amounts without being hungry, eating alone because of feelings of embarrassment, and feelings of disgust, depression, and guilt after binge

Many people with BED can fall into serious depression. BED can also lead to obesity which in its own brings along other health risks such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, and joint and muscle pain. There is one important thing to understand when it comes to BED and obesity, and that is that not everyone with BED is obese and that obesity does not cause BED. Binge eating disorder can affect anyone regardless of weight and/or BMI. In fact less than fifty percent of people with binge eating disorder are obese. Now that we have a better understanding of what BED is we can consider the following case