Do you eat large amounts of food when you are not hungry and then feel guilty afterwards? When this happens, do you hide your eating from others? Do you even sometimes force yourself to vomit after you are finished eating? If so, you might suffer from binge eating, which is a condition that affects more than 2.8 million adults. Binge eating is one of numerous eating disorders and can have serious consequences. Here are a few things you should be aware of if you believe you might suffer from this.

What Is It?

Binge eating disorder (BED) is a condition that involves more than overeating on occasion. When you have this, you will most likely overeat every day, and it will typically be done in private. No one may even suspect that you do this, yet you might be suffering psychologically from this. It is something that becomes a habit and typically lasts for three months or longer.

What Causes It?

Researchers are not entirely sure what causes people to develop this condition, but they believe it may have something to do with chemical composition of the part of the brain that controls the amount of food people eat. It is also thought that this may be a hereditary condition.

In addition, BED may also be the result of how people deal with trauma. When a person goes through a traumatic experience in life, he or she may turn to something for relief. For some people this may be drugs or alcohol, for others it may be food. If you eat when you are sad, stressed, or depressed, you may eat and eat even though you are not the slightest bit hungry.

While a lot of people may overeat once in a while, BED disorder is something that can continually worsen over time. If you believe you may suffer from this, you should understand what the harmful effects are of this very common eating disorder.

How Does BED Affect Your Body?

BED can affect your health over time, and the first effect it may have is extreme weight gain. If you eat way too much all the time, it will be easy to gain a lot of weight, unless you force yourself to vomit when you are finished eating. In addition to gaining weight, you may also be at risk for developing high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart disease. You may also have a higher risk of developing diabetes and gallbladder issues.

How Is This Treated?

If you believe you suffer from BED, it might be wise to seek help sooner rather than later, and you can do this by visiting outpatient eating disorder treatment centers. There, they will evaluate your condition and determine a good course of action to help you stop your uncontrollable eating habits.

One method commonly used for treating BED is psychotherapy. This is a form of counseling that can help you find out why you have developed this eating disorder. If this occurred as a way to cope with problems in your life, psychotherapy can help you work through the problems so that you will no longer turn to food for relief.

Another way this can be treated is with medication. There is a medication that is FDA-approved called Lisdexamfetamine. This can help your brain operate properly so that it helps you control the amount of food you eat.

Seeking help for any type of eating disorder is vital if you want to break the addiction and live a healthier life. To learn more about eating disorders, visit a clinic that offers outpatient services for these types of disorders. 

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