People with binge eating disorders eat excessive amounts of food in a short amount of time. However, unlike people with bulimia, they don’t follow up these binges with food purging. The disorder is more equally distributed between men and women than bulimia or anorexia. Still, women are more likely to be affected than men.
If this happens to you, women’s eating disorder treatment can help you recover. Reach out to Women’s Recovery at 833.754.0554 for more information or to enroll in treatment.
Don’t know if you’re affected? Here are three common symptoms of binge eating disorder in women.
Symptoms of Binge Eating Disorder
1. Eating Past the Point of Fullness
Your stomach can only handle so much food at a time. To help prevent you from overloading your system, your brain sends chemical signals of fullness. Typically, these signals leave you feeling sated for several hours—hunger returns when the chemicals that signal fullness fall below a certain point.
However, it’s possible to override this built-in system and overeat. Most people do this on occasion. But in people with binge eating disorders, eating past the point of fullness is not an occasional thing. It’s a pattern that recurs at least once a week.
2. Eating Heavily When You’re Not Hungry
Your food intake is tied to your hunger levels in a healthy eating pattern. When you feel hungry, you eat enough to feel sated. When you’re not hungry, you generally don’t eat. If you have a binge eating disorder, you do not follow this pattern of food consumption. Instead, you eat when you’re not hungry. In addition, the amount of food you eat goes well past the point of typical snacking.
3. Eating at an Unusually Fast Pace
This third common binge eating disorder symptoms can be harder to detect. Why? Most Americans eat at a faster rate than nutrition experts recommend. When you eat food at a rapid pace, you don’t allow your brain’s fullness chemicals to do their job correctly. Instead, you fill yourself up before those chemicals have a chance to kick in. If you find yourself eating faster than you usually do, your behavior may be a sign of binge eating.
Additional Possible Symptoms of Binge Eating Disorder
There are two additional possible symptoms of severe and diagnosable food binging:
- Eating by yourself to avoid having anyone witness your actions
- Experiencing feelings of guilt, depression, or disgust when you finish eating
You only need to have three of the five potential symptoms to qualify for a diagnosis. In addition, at a minimum, your symptoms must occur weekly for at least three months.
Effective Binge Eating Disorder Treatment
Most women and girls with binge eating disorders recover when they receive professional help. Effective treatment plans include options such as:
- Nutritional therapy or counseling
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy or another form of psychotherapy
- Medication designed to ease specific binging symptoms
You may receive any of these binge eating disorder treatments separately. However, they are often used in combination.
Get Help for Eating Disorder Treatment at Women’s Recovery
Are you or your loved one affected by binge eating disorder? The experts at Women’s Recovery can help. We specialize in eating disorder treatment for women also affected by substance problems.
Our approach not only supports your recovery from binge eating disorder. It also supports recovery from your additional symptoms of addiction. This is crucial since you must deal with both of these issues in order to regain your sense of wellness.
Call us today at 833.754.0554 for more information on our full range of treatment options. You can also reach us through our convenient online form.
