September 28, 2007
Binge Eating Disorder
You’ve just returned to your table from your third trip to the buffet
line. You’ve had more than your fill of meat, pasta, vegetables and
salads.
The load of food is sitting a little heavy in your stomach and you’re
feeling just a touch guilty for gorging.
Yet you’re still contemplating going back because that lemon meringue
pie looks too good to pass up — and you’d like just a taste or two of
the chocolate cake, maybe with a small scoop of ice cream.
You think for a minute that maybe you have a problem. Then you loosen
your pants and feel a little better.
You may have gone overboard — binged, if you will. But does that make
you a binge eater?
Probably not.
Binge eating is one thing — binge eating disorder is another.
“Everyone overeats at Thanksgiving. It’s nothing to be alarmed about,”
says Ron Saxen, who suffered from binge eating disorder for most of
his adult life. “But when it starts to become a big issue in your
life, you can tell it kind of takes you over — it’s what you think
about when you wake up, what you think about before you go to bed at
night. Especially when you start doing the bingeing and you’re hiding it.”
Saxen — author of The Good Eater, a book that chronicles his battle
with binge eating — used food to deal with anxiety. It was not unusual
for him to put down a couple of hamburgers, a large order of fries and
a chocolate shake, then go to another fast food restaurant and order
half a dozen burritos before finishing the first meal.
“Then I would go to a place where I could get three king-sized candy
bars. Usually the coup-de-grace would be to finish it off with a
sundae — like a half-gallon of ice cream, a pound of M&M’s and a pint
of hot fudge. You couldn’t always finish that because you can only put
so much into your stomach.”
Saxen’s first bout with binge eating happened when he was 11. His
parents were members of a fundamentalist Christian denomination. His
father — who would return home from work late at night — frequently
beat him and his two brothers.
“My mom would leave a notepad [for my father] with all the things we
had done wrong. And she said ‘I’m going to give this to your dad and
he’s going to wake you up and whip you guys.’ One night, I got sweaty
palms and sweaty feet. There happened to be a candy sale [at our
school]. I had 20 pounds of chocolate in my closet and I got up during
the night and ate one five-ounce chocolate candy bar and it took me
away. But as soon as the candy bar’s gone reality comes back. So I
kept doing that.”
By the time he stopped, he had eaten three pounds of chocolate. Saxen
learned that food could cure his fears, at least temporarily.
Binge eating disorder affects 3.5 per cent of women and 2 per cent of
men at some point in their lives, according to a study published in
February 2007 by researchers at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric
hospital in Massachusetts affiliated with Harvard University. Or to
put the statistics another way, 40 per cent of people who suffer from
binge eating are men.
The survey on eating disorders found that binge eating disorder is far
more common than either anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. Anorexics
starve themselves, while bulimics eat to excess but then try to purge
their systems by vomiting. People with binge eating disorder don’t
normally try to rid themselves of the extra calories they take in,
although some over-exercise.
Saxen’s cycle was generally characterized by starving himself during
the day, followed by hours of working out and then bingeing at night.
By the age of 21, he had trimmed down to 179 pounds and landed himself
a one-year modelling contract. But when he was told to lose five
pounds two weeks before an underwear shoot, he responded by going on
an extended binge and putting on weight. He ate his way out of a
modelling career.
According to the Toronto-based National Eating Disorder Information
Centre, you may be suffering from binge eating disorder if you:
* Eat large amounts of food frequently and in one sitting.
* Feel out of control when you eat and can’t stop eating.
* Eat quickly and in secret.
* Eat to the point where you are frequently uncomfortably full.
* Feel guilty and ashamed of your binges.
Many binge eaters may also have a history of going on diets and
failing. An estimated 20 per cent of obese people are also believed to
be binge eaters.
The Harvard study labelled binge eating disorder a “major public
health burden.”
“Everybody knows about anorexia and bulimia; however, binge eating
disorder affects more people, is often associated with severe obesity
and tends to persist longer,” lead author James Hudson said.
“The consequences of binge eating disorder can be serious, including
obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. It
is imperative that health experts take notice of these findings.”
Saxen got over his binge eating, but it took him more than 20 years to
do it.
“In the book, I would have loved to have said ‘here are the seven
things I did to get it under control.’ But it wasn’t like that. For
me, it was a traumatic event — my sister getting into an automobile
accident and almost dying. She was my one amigo — it got me. And then,
a person who I ran into about 10 years ago became my friend and later
my wife. It was that support and wanting to be a better man and
getting sick and tired of this endless cycle that said I need to do
something about it for myself and for those around me.”
He also got professional help, but that came late in the process.
“Nobody wants to get help, nobody wants to admit they have a problem.
But trying to do it on your own is impossible. When I finally went
down that path to getting better, it was like, I wondered what I was
waiting for because I knew there was something wrong, and I probably
should talk to somebody.”
Today Saxen’s down to a healthy weight and he’s learned to deal with
his anxieties in ways that don’t involve huge quantities of food.
“Most schools in the medical fields say you always have to be vigilant
like with alcoholism. There are others who say you can be recovered
forever. For me, I feel that if you’ve crossed this line of behaviour
a thousand times and you think that you will never do it again, that
seems kind of bold. I’m the best I’ve ever been and do I think I will
go back to those dark days? Never.”
“It gets way, way, way easier as time goes on. It feels pretty close
to effortless now.”