Posts Tagged ‘Causes’

Binge Eating Disorder – Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

Binge eating involves more than just eating a lot. With binge eating, a person feels out of control and powerless to stop eating while he or she is doing it. That’s why binge eating is also called compulsive overeating.

People with a binge eating problem may overeat when they feel stressed, upset, hurt, or angry. Many find it comforting and soothing to eat, but after a binge they are likely to feel guilty and sad about the out-of-control eating. Binge eating is often a mixed-up way of dealing with or avoiding difficult emotions.

Food is important for growth and development, but we do not always eat to satisfy our hunger. Most of us overeat from time to time, and we may feel bloated or excessively full as a result. Occasional over-indulgence does not constitute an eating disorder, and binge eating has only recently been recognized as an eating disorder in its own right.

Causes of Binge Eating Disorder

• Depression. As many as half of all people with binge eating disorder are depressed or have been depressed in the past.

• Dieting. Some people binge after skipping meals, not eating enough food each day, or avoiding certain kinds of food.

• Coping skills. Studies suggest that people with binge eating may have trouble handling some of their emotions. Many people who are binge eaters say that being angry, sad, bored, worried, or stressed can cause them to binge eat.

Complications

People with binge eating disorder can get sick due to a lack of proper nutrition. Binging episodes usually include foods that are high in sugar and/or salt, but low in healthier nutrients.

People with binge eating disorder are usually very upset by their binge eating and may become very depressed.

People who are obese and also have binge eating disorder are at risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol levels, gallbladder disease, heart disease, and certain types of cancer.

On the other hand, people with binge-eating disorder often have numerous behavioral and emotional signs and symptoms. These include:

• Eating until the point of discomfort or pain

• Eating much more food during a binge episode than during a normal meal or snack

• Eating faster during binge episodes

• Feeling that their eating behavior is out of control

• Frequent dieting without weight loss

• Recurrent episodes of binge eating

• Frequently eating alone

Treatment

Cognitive behavior therapy – Focuses on the thoughts that envelop food and eating. One of the main goals is for you to become more self-aware of your relationship to food. Your therapist may ask you to keep a food diary or a journal of your thought processes about food.

Psychotherapy can involve a significant time and financial commitment. You are worth it! Particularly if you are struggling with other issues (sexual abuse, depression, substance use, relationship problems) psychotherapy can be very helpful in addressing not only your disordered eating, but also your overall emotional health and happiness.

Behavior therapy – Uses rewards and repercussions to change the behaviors of bingeing, compulsive overeating, and emotional eating. The behavior therapist teaches you to recognize triggers for bingeing and to interrupt emotional eating episodes by substituting relaxation and other coping strategies.

Causes of Binge Eating Disorder and Compulsive Overeating Treatment Tips

According to the National Institutes of Health, 2 percent of all U.S. adults suffer from compulsive overeating—making binge eating disorder or yo yo dieting more common than bulimia or anorexia. Unlike other eating disorders, which primarily occur in women, binge eating disorder also affects a significant number of men.
 
Binge eating usually begins in late adolescence or early adulthood, often after a major diet. But most people don’t seek help until much later when weight gain from their binge eating is causing health problems. It is for this reason that many compulsive overeating treatment centers have come up in Orange County, Laguna Niguel, Irvine, CA.

Most experts believe that it takes a combination of things to develop an eating disorder — including a person’s genes, emotions, and experience.

Biological causes of binge eating disorder

Studies show that biological abnormalities contribute to binge eating. For example, the hypothalamus (the part of the brain that controls appetite) may not be sending correct messages about hunger and fullness. Researchers have also found a genetic mutation that appears to cause food addiction. Finally, there is evidence that low levels of the brain chemical serotonin play a role in compulsive eating. Such cases need binge eating treatment.

Psychological causes of binge eating disorder

Depression and binge eating are strongly linked. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, up to half of all binge eaters are either depressed or have been before. There is further evidence that low self-esteem, loneliness, and body dissatisfaction are involved in compulsive overeating. People needing compulsive overeating treatment may also have trouble with impulse control and managing and expressing their feelings.

Social and cultural causes of binge eating disorder

Social pressure to be thin can add to the shame binge eaters feel and fuel their emotional eating. The way one is raised can also increase the risk for binge eating disorder. Some parents unwittingly set the stage for bingeing by using food to comfort, dismiss, or reward their children. Children who are exposed to frequent critical comments about their bodies and weight are also vulnerable.

Effects of binge eating disorder

People with binge eating disorder report more health issues, stress, insomnia, and suicidal thoughts than people without an eating disorder. Depression, anxiety, and substance abuse are common side effects as well. Binge eating also interferes with a person’s relationships and career.

Binge eating support and Treatment – Orange County, Laguna Niguel, Irvine, CA

It can be difficult to overcome binge eating and food addiction. Unlike other addictions, your “drug” is necessary for survival, so you don’t have the option of avoiding it. Instead, you must develop a healthier relationship with food—a relationship that’s based on meeting your nutritional needs, not your emotional ones.

Overcoming binge eating disorder also involves getting emotional eating under control. Eating right and listening to your body is an essential step in stopping binge eating. Other strategies that help include practicing relaxation techniques, staying connected to family and friends, and making time for things you enjoy as part of your daily schedule.

Source: helpguide.org

What Causes Eating Disorder?

Gentle Eating – Begin your meal by closing your eyes and breathing slowly, noticing how you are feeling, Sad, Mad or glad? Locate your hunger on a scale of 1-10. One being starved and ten being stuffed. Spend 15 minutes in silence and put your fork down after each bite. When 15 minutes is completed, take time to stretch and breathe, locate your hunger again and then finish your meal.

Eating disorders indicate the strong combined activity of an underlying sense of lack of personal autonomy and an underlying sense of lack of self-control. The patient feels inordinately, paralysingly helpless and ineffective. His eating disorders are an effort to exert and reassert mastery over his own life. At this stage, he is unable to differentiate his own feelings and needs from those of others. His cognitive and perceptual distortions (for instance, regarding body image – somatoform disorders) only increase his feeling of personal ineffectiveness and his need to exercise even more self-control (on his diet, the only thing left).

Emotional, Physical or Sexual trauma in childhood is ‘violence’ that does not require force. The child is thrown into a ‘state of shock.’ For some the memories remain conscious, while others drive them beneath the conscious level. The coping mechanisms the child used are carried into adulthood and impact the person’s life on every level—Emotional, Physical, Mental, Behavioral, Spiritual, Sexual and Relationships. While these coping mechanisms were appropriate then, they are a ‘problem’ in adulthood.

Bulimia nervosa is a serious eating disorder that stems both from physical and emotional distress, in most case, as a result of judgment passed by peers or coaches or by society itself. In today’s world of stick-thin models, where appearance is everything, your gymnast may be pressured to drastically and quickly reduce body size. Typically, the behavior associated with bulimics is binge eating and then purging.

Regular yoga practice will increase the overall fitness level of the human body, improving the immune system and giving it a good chance of fighting illnesses. This is helpful with Anorexia, for example, because the sufferer’s body will experience lower energy levels, and the condition reduces bone density.In dealing with eating disorders, the yogic system identifies them as a problem related to the first chakra. There are different yoga poses that can be used to balance it: eg. staff, crab, full wind, and pigeon.

Eating disorder which includes anorexia, bulimia and compulsive overeating are some of the serious forms of mental illness. Living a life with this illness imparts a feeling of insecurity, shame, anxiety. Mostly, the individual is left to struggle alone because of the complicated combination of physical and mental symptoms, but with proper medication, this illness can be cured. People with eating disorder feel that they are overweight and continue eating less and become malnourished. Most women, especially the teenage girls are affected badly by eating disorder because in order to look good they want to lose weight by starving themselves, which is totally unhealthy way of weight loss.