With the changing lifestyle, we have developed this habit of eating loads of food in short intervals. If you are regularly having this urge and feel out of control, you may be suffering from Binge Eating Disorder. It is a harmful habit that can grow into severe long term problems like obesity. It impacts your social as well as personal life.
What is binge eating disorder?
It is an eating disorder where a person eats a large quantity of food frequently without able to control his or her urge. The person often tends to feel distressed while consuming food or after consuming food.
The person who suffers from binge eating disorder may eat to the point of discomfort. There are chances they hold themselves guilty of eating too much. They often get into depression and remain anxious about various kinds of thoughts. Thoughts like what would the food they are having do their body and make them feel stressed.
Cause and Effect of Binge Eating disorder
There can be multiple reasons which can contribute to the development of binge eating disorder. It could be genes that you get from your parents, emotions, and experience. For example, some develop this disorder because of social pressure. Social pressure could be from friends, peers, and even parents. Being too thin can add pressure to eat more than they feel like. Some parents and guardians unknowingly set the platform for binge eating in order to comfort their kids and sometimes for rewarding purpose.
Many people resort to food as an easy way to suppress their emotions. The majority of the emotions are anger, loneliness, depression, and lack of attention. Depression and binge eating are closely linked. This disorder is completely treatable and can be brought under control.
Difference between overeating and binge eating
If you have sporadic episodes of overeating and there are occasional phases, chances are you are just over-eating and not suffering from binge eating disorder. Some times you tend to finish the entire food on your plate if there is a little extra on it. Or the habit of finishing chips packet if it is opened. If this is happening sporadically, you might be just eating too much.
Practice mindful eating
It is important to identify the root cause of your binge eating or finding out the triggers that cause it. The best way is to manage the triggers mindfully. Like mentioned before, many of our emotions manifest into actions like binge eating. It is imperative to be aware of your emotions right on the spot as they enter with a thought. Most people tend to overreact and act out before thinking much about it. Instead of focusing on the tips to eat less or fight binge eating habits, it is better to go for the cause that is leading to it. Therefore, practice mindfulness meditation.
Mindfulness enables you to see your behaviors with much better clarity. It even enables you to step back from the behavior that you think can cause jeopardy. It is not something that is exclusive to just binge eating. People have been successful to quit smoking and give up drugs using mindfulness techniques.
How does mindfulness help
The more you train yourself with mindfulness the better you get. Imagine a scenario, you are home and there is no one to give you company. You start to feel bored. Thoughts like you are single and you don’t have a partner, surrounds your head. These thoughts provoke a sharp feeling of depression and sadness in your mind. You acknowledge this sadness and start to have the urge to do something about it. In order to overcome these negative feelings, our sub-conscience mind tries to suppress it with things like comforting food. This is where it all gets wrong. You decide to take a small bite but the temptations and impulses push you to go for another, and another. We often rely on our will power but that just rarely stands against the persistent temptation to have comforting food.
Now in the aforementioned example, if you are mindful and are able to trace the feelings, you will realize that it was just mere boredom that escalated to indulgence in binge eating. Upon realizing you would have done something about it. You would try to think of something else or try and keep yourself occupied. You could call your friends, or simply just continue to get ahead with your work. Therefore, noticing the very first negative feeling is very important.