Binge Eating Disorder

It is proposed that binge-eating disorders (BED) seem almost as common among men as among women, with a ratio of about 40% male to 60% female. A large number of authors in the field of binge eating suggest that overweight young people have a lower self esteem than their normal weight male peers. Many men who binge eat are not overweight, or are only a little overweight, but still they are constantly concerned about their body shape and their level of fat. These men often feel distressed over their body image (body image dissatisfaction) in addition to their shame, secrecy and self-depreciation occurs in conjunction with the most severe eating disorders.

A mild, gradual increase in weight over time may be the healthiest weight pattern and compatible with the longest life. Moderate obesity however is 41-60% above normal weight, with severe obesity at 60-100% higher than the ideal and morbid obesity is more than double the expected weight and is primarily concerned with an excess of body fat. Let us note at this point that obesity is not technically a form of eating disorder, but undoubtedly they share many features in common with men suffering from eating disorders being much more likely to have been obese in their past. A Body Mass Index – BMI of 25-30 is mildly obese, and above 30 is significantly obese; male adolescents who enter adulthood with a BMI of 40 or more will have their life expectancy reduced by up to 13 years.

Compulsive overeating (BED) in males is characterized by periods of uncontrolled, continuous eating which takes the sufferer past the point of feeling full. Unlike bulimia, there is no purging after eating, even though the sufferer may try to restrict their intake to control their weight. When bingeing does occur, it is the consumption of a large amount of food rapidly with a sense of loss of control, with dissociation (a trance-like state of detachment) being common. Leptin in the brain tells the body when you are full and don’t need to eat anymore, ghrenlin tells the body when you need to eat and insulin is the messenger, produced by the pancreas, in response to an increase in blood glucose. Cholecystokinin is produced by the duodenum and is thought to regulate the size of the meal that is eaten. Prader Willi syndrome is an obscure neurological disorder of unknown cause (believed to be a defective hypothalamus) that first manifests in infants who find it hard to gain weight, but soon changes into a condition characterised by ravenous hunger by the time the child is two or three.

Approximately 25% of male medical obesity involves undiagnosed binge-eating disorder as a contributing factor; the vast majority has lifestyle obesity as the most common type. Thompson (2000) suggests that obesity has increased dramatically in recent years and occurs more often in men (31%) than women (24%). Night eating syndrome and binge eating disorder are most common among overweight and obese people and during a nocturnal sleep-eating disorder, a person will prepare their own food and eat while they are asleep or in a semi-conscious state; they rarely remember this and focus on food high in fat and sugar during these nocturnal binges. It is important to note that binge-eating disorder is the most commonly diagnosed eating disorder in males.