Binge eating disorder is a serious eating disorder. When you have a binge-eating disorder, you may be embarrassed about overeating and vow to stop. But you feel so compelled that you can’t resist the urges and continue binge eating. If you have a binge-eating disorder, it is best to consult a physician who will run a series of tests to identify the cause.
Binge eating can contribute to obesity, as it involves quickly consuming large amounts of food. However, other factors can also contribute to obesity, such as genetics, lifestyle, and environmental factors. It’s important to address all of these factors to manage and prevent obesity effectively.
Obesity is a complex disease. It appears as a polygenic condition. It is affected by environmental factors (mainly unbalanced dietary patterns and physical inactivity). We will have to consider genetic factors in the fat reduction process. These are associated with a negative energy balance. (Martinez et al., 2008)
Three factors are externally responsible for obesity. These are:
Nutrition: Certain foods, such as refined carbohydrates and unsaturated fats, contribute the most to obesity
Medicine: Certain prescription medicine, including anti-depressants, steroids, contraceptives, medications for diabetes, hypertension, migraines, seizures, bipolar disorder, allergies, insomnia, and a host of others, are associated with weight gain.
Sleep: Disrupted sleep; sleep less than 7 hours or more than 9 hours can lead to obesity. Difficulty in breathing can also be a reason for disturbed sleep.
Obesity is a complex disease. It has to be treated. Obesity is sometimes associated with an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism). Medications help manage this condition. (https://www.worldobesity.org/)
While behavioral interventions seem to be effective in promoting weight loss, maintaining them is a challenge. Most individuals tend to regain or at least a part of it within a year, even after losing weight. Behavior change helps sustain weight loss. Behavior change happens if you enjoy it, and it prevails when accompanied by self-monitoring and coping strategies. Physical and psychological resources must be made available to maintain self-regulated change behavior. The changes need to be supported by a supportive environment and social support.
Access to fast, fatty food and pre-cooked meals saves us the struggle of cooking. Excellent and accessible public and personal transport make travel and movement convenient and easy. The result is over-indulgence in comfort, high-calorie fatty food, a sedentary lifestyle, and low physical activity levels. Access is one of the causes of binge eating.
Obesity cannot be attributed to a lack of self-control, even though we see obese individuals unable to control their eating. Those who slim down through weight loss programs tend to regain weight within a year. Nearly all such individuals return to their pre-weight loss weight within five years. Among other facts, the environment, too, has helped the spread of obesity over the last fifty years. Recommendations seeking to reverse the impact of this environment includes, among other things reducing portion size, levying tax on high-calorie and junk foods, etc.
Availability of food from vending machines, takeaway food, and eating out has contributed to a reduction in effort to perform a task that took a lot of energy up to half a century ago. Commonly, meals consumed in restaurants tend to be more abundant in calories and often more substantial than those consumed at home. We also find eating out more convenient than cooking food at home.
Food abundance comes with the affluence of society. It is the choices of food that we make that determine if obesity will set in or not. In the US, high-fat, energy-dense food is being consumed by more impoverished communities. The more affluent sections of society are trending towards vegetables and complex carbohydrate-rich food.
Obesity can be reversed only through a multidisciplinary approach.
References: