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Food Addiction - Binge Eating Causes, Symptoms and Therapy
People who suffer from food addiction gobble up tons of food in spurts. They have so-called cravings, without the hunger drives them. You can not control these seizures. Many people who do not have an acute disorder also eat out of frustration, boredom, or to numb themselves. Once it works, displacing feelings of emptiness through eating, some sufferers get used to it, and the occasional compensation of unpleasant feelings through eating becomes an addiction. Women are often affected, but not only.
contents
- Signs and Symptoms of Food Addiction
- When does cravings turn into food addiction??
- distribution
- Causes of Food Addiction / Binge Eating
- overweight
- Eating and vomiting?
- therapy
- Food addiction to diets
- Trigger for the binge eating
- Consequences of a food addiction
- overweight
- Psychic consequences
- risk factors
Signs and Symptoms of Food Addiction
Binge eating is characterized by the following symptoms:
1) eating fits
2) disturbed eating behavior between attacks
3) Change between food ban and uncontrolled eating thrusts
4) Disturbed Perception of Apettit, Hunger and Saturation
5) Disturbed perception of the body, negative body concept, hatred of one's own body
Secretly devouring food is a typical sign of a food addiction. (Image: Photographee.eu/fotolia.com) When does cravings turn into food addiction??
A food addiction is characterized by the following symptom circle:
1) Recurring binge eating
2) At least two per week over six months
3) Guilt feelings after slinging, depression and self-blame
4) Sometimes missing memory of the condition before, during and immediately after the attacks (Fressrausch)
5) slings
6) Eating, though the stomach is overcrowded, until it hurts and beyond
7) food without hunger
8) Eat alone out of shame, eat secretly, just as an alcoholic hides the bottles
9) Disgust after eating and disgust for food
distribution
Up to 5% of Germans suffer from binge eating. As a rule, the disorder breaks out between the ages of 20 and 35, but in the case of those who are "healed", there is often a second boost between the ages of 45 and 54. Women are 1.5 times more likely to be affected than men, overweight people are more likely than normal weight.
About 30% of sufferers made previously structured diets to reduce weight. Above all, people who had their first feeding attack at the age of 25 belong to this "Diet-First" group. The "Binge-First" group, on the other hand, includes people who had a binge at the age of 12 for the first time.
Causes of Food Addiction / Binge Eating
Binge eating is primarily considered a mental disorder, but personal, sociocultural and biological aspects also play a role. Tendency to depression, psychosocial stress and severe obesity play into the frequency of binge eating. Mental disorders such as borderline syndrome favor the development of a food addiction.
overweight
Obesity is an important aspect of binge eating. Here the self-perception plays a special role. Studies have shown that obese people with food addiction, their own body and their body image as significantly more negative than overweight without food addiction. The self-image in turn plays a crucial role in the development of the disease.
The body perception of people with a food addiction is often distorted. (Image: ronstik / fotolia.com) Eating and vomiting?
Bulimia sufferers also feed in spurts of food on a large scale. Unlike predators, however, they try to vomit the food they eat. What they both have in common is the sense of shame because of their disturbed eating habits, the secret food, and the tricks to hide their eating habits from others.
Unlike bulimia, food addiction is usually associated with obesity. Also, bulimia sufferers do not know about the onset and end of a binge eating, eating addict.
therapy
Doctors consider food addiction as a typical avoidance behavior. Accordingly, sufferers try to avoid negative feelings such as stress, boredom or inner doctrine through binge eating.
Although therapy is also about reducing overeating, it is especially important to have psychotherapy. It's all about self-esteem and depression. It is also important to prevent relapses.
Psychotherapy is important because a food addiction is usually not a disturbance of the hunger sensation, such as in overweight people who, unlike normal weight, feel full only after large quantities. Rather, hunger and pleasure have little to do with these eating disorders, but those affected compensate for negative moods.
Food addiction to diets
Failed diets can lead to a craving for food. Sufferers then lose control of states of hunger and fatness between food bans and slingshots when they lift the restrictions.
In addition, many sufferers have already embarked on the diets because of a negative self-image, and after the recurrent onslaught, continue to be frustrated, filling this frustration with food again.
Stress is often the trigger for uncontrolled food cravings. (Image: Boyarkina Marina / fotolia.com) Trigger for the binge eating
A typical trigger is acute mental stress, at work or in private life. Those affected have usually not learned to withstand stress or conflict confrontative carry out and persevere. They calm down for a short time with the bingeing and then have feelings of guilt.
Consequences of a food addiction
The most visible consequence of a food addiction is the constant weight gain. In addition, there is a lack of endurance, shortness of breath, fast fatigue, heavy sweating and ultimately a high risk for cardiovascular diseases.
These consequences drive those affected even more into the food addiction. They eat anyway, to compensate for negative feelings. The lack of ability to move, they are less and less people, their social contacts are at risk.
So they feel lonelier and compensate for this with food, which in turn makes them lonely.
But there are also acute consequences: The excessive food may cause, firstly, that the intestines clogged, and secondly that the salivary glands produce increased gastric juices, which in turn can cause gastritis, ulcers or ulcers on the duodenum.
overweight
Heavy obesity as a result of a food addiction is associated with many dangers. The most common complaints include: high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, calcification of the coronary arteries, heart attack, cancer and diabetes.
Overweight resulting from the craving for food has many health risks such as hypertension and diabetes. (Image: Creativa Images / fotolia.com) Also gallstones, gout, breathing murmur while sleeping and arthritis can follow.
In women, possible infertility, problems with pregnancy and the specific female cancers can be a result. In men, there is an increased risk of prostate cancer. In both sexes, the risk of suffering a stroke increases.
Psychic consequences
A food addiction is not only a mental illness, it also has enormous psychological consequences for those affected. Out of shame, they often withdraw and feel as if they "do not belong".
Their binge eating is not just an expression of feelings of helplessness, they also lead to a feeling of powerlessness. Helplessness, passivity, resignation and self-abandonment are associated with disturbed eating habits.
Typical episodes of an eating disorder are also anxiety disorders, such as the fear of people, cleaning requirement, fear of the public. The longer an eating disorder persists, the more those concerned in society feel uncomfortable and imperfect. Self-esteem collapses, as does the ability to determine oneself.
Often the sufferers already suffer from a disturbed eating behavior since their childhood, because they learned this from their parents or learned to use food against frustration.
Many sufferers have been suffering from an eating disorder since childhood. (Image: kwanchaichaiudom / fotolia.com) risk factors
Certain mental traits are typical of people who develop food addiction. First of all, this involves a low self-esteem. Added to this are perfectionism, black and white thinking and impulsivity - all three are also linked to borderline syndrome, which is often associated with a specific eating disorder: anorexia, food addiction or bulimia.
Perfectionism necessarily causes frustration because neither a person nor a situation is ever perfect. The black-and-white thinking prevents one's own situation from being differentiated and alternative actions developed. The impulsiveness eventually leads to actions that reason does not control.
Because binge eating is associated with a particular psychic structure, behavioral therapies are particularly useful. Here, those affected learn alternative ways to respond to frustrations and strategies to better control their actions. Exemplary here in psychotherapy in Bulimie developed concepts. Interpersonal therapies and dialectical-behavioral therapies have been shown to be successful in studies.
Medication also affects the binge eating. First of all, antidepressants such as fluvoxamine, fluoxetine or sertraline are recommended. These dampen the negative moods that trigger binge eating. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)