Drawing back the curtain on binge eating

With psychiatrists mulling whether to classify binge eating as a bona fide eating disorder -- laid out in a package of stories in today's Health section -- the blog Jezebel launches a more personal discussion of the problem.

That post notes: "As someone who has been fortunate enough to receive proper treatment for an eating disorder, I find it somewhat troublesome that the concern over including binge eating disorder in the DSM comes back to worrying about doctors over prescribing medication or patients who rely on the diagnosis as some excuse to continue engaging in unhealthy behavior. ... I was able to get proper treatment because my eating disorder was clearly defined in the DSM."

People who have struggled with binge eating then weigh in. Others opine about the merits of the DSM classification.

Here's the L.A. Times' story, by staff writer Melissa Healy: Is binge eating a psychiatric disorder?

It begins: "Rina Silverman's refrigerator is almost always empty. She keeps it that way to avert episodes of frantic food consumption, often at night after a full meal, in which she tastes nothing and feels nothing but can polish off a party-sized bag of chips or a container of ice cream, maybe a whole box of cereal. The food she's eating at these moments hardly matters."
 
And here are the related stories in the package:

Trying to define binge eating disorder

Binge eating: Is it a form of addiction?

Holidays can feed binge eaters' problems

And for more on binge eating, check out this collection of information, tips and resources from helpguide.org.

— Tami Dennis

Photo: For binge eaters, one serving isn't enough.

Credit: Tim Boyle / Getty Images

Comments

[Tony]

Yes, one can binge on French fries, chips, breads, cake, pizza, cookies and candy, but no one can binge on steaks and eggs. Try it and see how far you can go. It has little to do with being a psychiatric disorder and is all about what you body tells itself when eating different types of foods.