Understanding Binge Eating: Causes, Solutions, and Coping Strategies
A lot of my coaching and therapy clients come to me feeling confused about binge eating and are unsure as to why it developed and unclear about how to stop. Whether you’re struggling with binge eating in San Diego, NYC, London, or Atlanta, it can feel really overwhelming. You may even be experiencing a lot of shame. Here are a few causes, solutions, and coping strategies to help you reduce and eliminate binge eating episodes so you can gain a life worth living!
Causes of Binge Eating
The causes of binge eating are complex. There are many factors that create a perfect storm in which you find yourself struggling around food. The main three are neurobiology, genetics, and environment.
Neurobiology
In the past 10 years, the neuroscience field has exploded. It’s an amazing gift to the eating disorder field in San Diego, London, and all around the world. When it comes to binge eating research, neuroscientists have found that when they do fMRI brain scans on people with binge eating disorder (BED) and compare them to individuals without eating disorders, there were differences in brain function.
The research
Researchers discovered that folks with BED have certain areas in the brain that don’t work as efficiently and effectively when compared to people without BED. Those areas of the brain include emotion regulation, impulse control, hunger/fullness cues, and others. What does this mean for you? It means that whether you live in Florida or Colorado if you struggle with binge eating, it’s not your fault. Binge eating disorder is a brain disorder. It’s not about willpower.
Genetics
There is strong evidence that all eating disorders have a genetic component. Researchers have conducted several identical twin studies and have found that if one twin has an eating disorder, there’s up to an 82% chance that the second twin does as well. What this says is that, again, eating disorders are not your fault. You were likely born with the genetic predisposition to develop one.
Environment
There are many environmental factors that contribute to the development of binge eating struggles. Here are the top risk factors:
Childhood adversity
Parents who strive for thinness and perfection
General parent psychiatric illness
In-utero exposure to high levels of testosterone, cortisol, or substances
Being adopted
Low parental warmth or emotional connectedness
I want to share with a huge caveat that eating disorder professionals have stepped far away from the parent-blame game when it comes to eating disorders. We really look at the neurobiological and genetic factors instead. That said, researchers have noticed these environmental factors showing up as well. As an eating disorder therapist in San Diego and as a binge eating coach worldwide, I would agree with these findings. Let’s still not blame the parents, though. They did the best they could with the resources and knowledge they had at the time.
Solutions to Binge Eating
Working with an eating disorder therapist who specializes in binge eating in London, England, UK, Toronto, Ontario, CA, or Chicago, IL, US, or wherever you are in the world can be very helpful. Eating disorder therapists, as well as binge eating coaches, can get you to the point at which you can reduce and eliminate your binge eating behaviors and go from thinking about food, eating, and body image 90% of the time to less than 10% of the time.
Eating Disorder Therapy
Eating disorder therapists in NYC, San Diego, Atlanta, or elsewhere can help you recover from binge eating. The important thing to ask is how much experience they have with working with binge eating. The reason is that I have a lot of eating disorder professional colleagues, and not all of them specialize in binge eating or BED. Binge eating issues present differently than bulimia or anorexia, so it’s vital to ensure that your eating disorder therapist can treat what you specifically struggle with.
Binge Eating Coach
Binge-eating coaches fall along a spectrum, based on their training and experience. You can have people with a bachelor’s degree who have taken a certification course, or people with master’s degrees in psychology or a related field, to folks with PhDs (like me!) who are licensed therapists.
There is a common thread
One similarity that runs across the spectrum is that nearly all of us have lived experience recovering from binge eating. Again, like me. It’s important to look at what type of program they are offering and see whether it fits your needs. Ask yourself, “Will this program/offer fit my lifestyle? Will I be able to maintain it over 3 months, 6 months, whatever?” Sustainability is a key to successful binge eating recovery.
Nutrition for Binge Eaters
I also strongly recommend that you look at working with an eating disorder dietitian who specializes in binge eating. At the very least, ensure that the binge eating coach can give you practical nutrition advice, based on the binge eating dietitian’s recommendations.
Support matters for food success, especially in the beginning
The latter can be tricky, as diet culture can sneak in there and look like binge eating recovery tips. That’s why having an eating disorder therapist as a coach is important. Highly experienced eating disorder therapists have extensive experience working with eating disorder dietitians (I talk with them multiple times per week) and are familiar with their recommendations for binge eating recovery.
Coping Strategies for Binge Eating
The primary goal in binge eating recovery is to reduce and eliminate binge eating behaviors. In order to do so, you need to develop proven coping strategies that help you when you feel the urge to binge eat.
Change Eating Behaviors
It’s first important to change your eating behaviors overall. Mechanical eating (a.k.a. regular eating or scheduled eating) is key. What that means is that you begin by eating breakfast within one hour of waking and then you eat at regularly scheduled intervals throughout the day, regardless of whether you feel hungry or full.
The reason is that, if you struggle with binge eating, the area of your brain that regulates hunger/fullness cues isn’t working that well, so you need to reboot your brain and digestive system by getting on a mechanical eating schedule. Dietitians typically recommend a 3 meal/2-3 snack ratio, every 3 hours.
Distract Yourself
Distraction is a fantastic dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skill that helps you when you feel the urge to binge and it’s not your regularly scheduled eating time. So that means that instead of binge eating, you watch cat/dog/baby goat videos, or play with your cat/dog/baby goat. Even incorporating mindful movement into your routine.
Playing video games and listening to music can help. Or, getting engrossed in a fantastic podcast is effective. Whatever you do, make sure that it really captures your attention and that it’s interesting and (hopefully) fun to do.
Manage Your Emotions
DBT skills like distraction also help you manage your emotions. Given that emotion regulation is another area of the brain that isn’t working as efficiently or effectively, it’s important to build skills to manage emotions. In addition to using distraction when you’re feeling emotionally overwhelmed, you can practice the opposite action.
If it’s like a tsunami of emotion hit you, and all you want to do is binge eat and curl up in a ball, do the opposite. Do something tactile that helps you engage your hands and eyes. Crocheting, knitting, drawing, coloring, petting your dog/cat/baby goat, etc., can be really helpful. It’ll also help you feel more grounded in your body, which helps calm down your nervous system.
Begin your path to binge eating recovery by understanding the causes, solutions, and coping strategies with a binge eating coach and eating disorder therapist.
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Disclaimers for Body Image, Binge Eating, and My Virtual Online Binge Eating Program
*DR. MARIANNE-LAND’S BINGE EATING RECOVERY MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM is online binge-eating education and private virtual group support via a Facebook Group. The aim of this course is to help people reduce and eliminate any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. DR. MARIANNE-LAND’S BINGE EATING RECOVERY MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment program and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.
**The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is virtual binge eating education and LIVE virtual coaching support. The goal of this program is to help people stop any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment program and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.