Compulsive Eating Disorder

Compulsive eating is seen in people, who eat in uncontrollable amounts when they are not hungry. An individual who eats in excessive amounts, for a variety of reasons, is termed as a Compulsive eater. Binge eating or snacking through the day is a common phenomenon. Irrespective of their size and shape, they eat more. They are unable to stop this behavior and feel that they are uncontrollable.

They are unable to analyze the reason behind this eating pattern.

Difficult, uncontrollable emotions and mental health are controlled by food. Day to day issues and emotional problems are overcome by eating. They do understand the existence of such a problem in them, but fail to identify the reason behind. The reasons attributed by compulsive eaters vary. Sorrow, guilt, fear, boredom, anger, depression, disappointment, and shame are the common ones. Temporary relief to the problem is addressed by this technique. Excessive hunger is also a causative factor in increasing food intake.

Eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa occur as a result of low self esteem. These individuals are ashamed of their actions and fail to eat publicly. The beginning years of eating paves way for compulsive overeating. Inability to cope up with problems and stress leads to compulsive overeating. Being fat also ahs a protective function, according to them. They are not harassed and sexually battered.

Compulsive overeating is followed subsequently by weight gain. Male percentages of compulsive overeaters are greater, compared to individuals suffering from anorexia and bulimia. Dieting, followed by overeating results in a binge, and this in turn, results in guilt, frustration and shame. Emotional dissatisfaction can result in a series of dieting and bingeing, thereby yielding no results. Though this technique is camouflaged, it is a life-threatening problem. Medical, nutritional and psychiatric guidance is essential.

Typical symptoms of compulsive overeating include, depression, social withdrawal, self depreciating, following irregular diet pattern, professional failure, complete focus on weight reduction, tormented by the eating pattern, binge eating, crash dieting and eating lesser quantities in public. Medical complications involve embolism, arthritis, weight gain, sciatica, arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, insomnia, breathlessness and finally lead to cardiac arrest.
Dieting should be stopped, as it is difficult to recover later from the diet and binge cycle. Research reveals the lack of correlation between long term dieting and weight reduction. Intervention is slow and requires a lot of self-support. The inherent behavior takes a while to change, by analyzing the issue.

Submitted on January 16, 2014