Is Your Overweight Child a Binge Eater?
Some teenagers and children are never hungry and just pick at their food at the family table - and yet somehow, they're overweight. What could explain this phenomenon? The problem could be binge eating or episodic overeating.
Binge eating disorder (BED) is a medical disorder described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In order to be diagnosed with BED, a teen has to eat excessive amounts of food over a two-hour period at least two days a week over a period of six months. A person with BED will meet three of these criteria: eating alone during the binge, having an uncomfortable full feeling afterward, eating when not hungry, and feeling guilty and disgusted afterward.
Episodic overeating is even more common than binge eating. These teens have many of the same habits and feelings of a binge eater, but they do not meet the exact medical criteria listed above.
Both binge eaters and episodic overeaters tend to be overweight or obese, unlike those who suffer from the two more well-known eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia. Some scientific research indicates that the act of overeating is what makes people gain weight, and that simply not overeating works better than dieting or restricting calories for weight maintenance. This could explain why binge and episodic eaters are usually overweight. Anorexics are thin because they are on starvation diets; bulimics stay slim because they compensate for their overeating by vomiting or using laxatives. Binge eaters do not compensate so they put on weight. While the vast majority of anorexics and bulimics are female, over 40 percent of young binge eaters are boys.
Although it is true that nearly everyone overeats at certain times, such as during the holidays, binge eaters are consistently overeating for emotional reasons. The National Institutes of Health found that binge eaters suffer from depression, sadness, stress, or anxiety. They are using food as a form of substance abuse because of their underlying emotional problems.
If your child is a binge eater, she will be gaining weight but not overeating at meals or in front of you. She is a secret eater. You will find large amounts of food missing from the refrigerator or pantry, and food containers in her room. She will have irregular eating patterns such as skipping meals, eating late at night (e.g., making a "Mickey D" run at midnight), and eating junk food.
Putting a young binge eater on a diet or turning yourself into the "food police" will do more harm than good, and may actually make your child gain even more weight. The way to help is by addressing the child's underlying emotional problems. Some overweight children suffer from low-self esteem and social alienation at school, so they binge as a way to cope with these feelings. This keeps them overweight, thus creating a vicious circle. Other teens are under too much pressure to perform or have family conflicts or other problems, so they learn to release their stress through binge eating. Each child is unique and must be treated as an individual, perhaps through professional counseling.
Start by researching eating disorder programs on the Internet, or checking with your doctor for advice and referrals to a program designed specifically for overweight teens or children, not adults. Your community may have resources for teen weight loss through local YMCAs, gymnasiums, or university health centers.
Another choice might be a summer weight loss camp, which is different from a "fat camp." The new state-of-the-art weight loss camps retrain overweight children to make healthy food choices and to incorporate exercise as a permanent lifestyle change. These newer weight loss camps employ licensed therapists to help campers with underlying emotional problems. They provide elaborate aftercare programs in which parents and children work together to maintain the child's lifestyle changes.
Look for summer camps that emphasize lifestyle changes and not weight loss. The weight loss camps' administrators should be able to show you records of successful and permanent teen weight loss among former campers, who do not have to return for repeat summers of therapy.
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