Binge Eating

With the rise of obesity in today's society everyone is looking for quick weight loss. This is a bad idea, and often will lead to developing binge eating disorder. Eating disorders are psychiatric abnormalities in one's eating habits. Tabloids display the secret eating disorders of celebrities and music artists. Yet the news never discuss how serious these eating disorders really are, and how common they are.

Most quick weigh loss techniques require extreme unrealistic diets. Obviously these diets never keep the weight off. Even when a diet works, often the pounds lost are gained back slowly simply because no one can stay on a diet forever. The problem with quick weight loss attempts is that they often require you to stay away from junk foods and fast foods. This usually leads to binge eating.

Binge eating is consuming very large amounts of food in a short period of time. Binge eating isn't related to hunger most of the time. Often it's eating beyond the point of satisfying one's physical hunger. Binge eaters often eat large amounts of food even when they aren't really hungry. Binge eating usually leads to feelings of guilt or sadness because of the future weight gain it will lead to.

Following the popular advice of diets that recommend avoiding junk foods and fast foods is a bad idea. When one avoids such foods, one starts craving them more and more. These carvings get out of control and usually lead to binge eating. For example if someone has been avoiding pizza, and then decide to have a slice, they'll often end up eating a few more slices and lose control.

It's important to note that binge eating is different from bulimia. Bulimia usually involves overeating which is followed by self-induced vomiting, use of laxatives, over-exercising, or fasting. Binge eating is one of the leading causes of obesity today. Obesity is very dangerous for one's health, yet often it's very challenging to treat.

Often obese individuals eat for comfort, and end up developing food addictions. These addictions are usually a form of emotional eating. Emotional eating is basically when one eats not to satisfy physical hunger but rather to deal with tough or negative emotions. Stress eating is a common example where one will consume larger quantities of food on a stressful day.

Binge eating is usually kept a secret. A food addict will usually overeat in private to avoid others finding out about their disorderly eating habits. This is why binge eating is very tough to treat because sufferers keep it a secret. Many will overeat until becoming obese and then will eventually become desperate and seek help.

Therapy is probably the most common treatment for binge eating. There are also recovery clinics for binge eaters to check into. Also there are many books on the topic where the authors share their own recovery efforts, what worked and what didn't. There are also support groups such as overeaters anonymous.

Next time you are considering quick weight loss, think again. Trying to lose weight quickly is unrealistic and dangerous. Also being obsessed with your body weight can lead to developing eating disorders. It's best to lose weight naturally through exercise, and slowly implementing healthier eating habits.