Compulsive overeating is something that affects millions of people around the world. It’s a disorder that knows no national boundary, it doesn’t pay attention to race, gender, or ethnicity. It doesn’t care about economic class. It’s non-discriminatory, just like other addictions and disorders.
Compulsive overeating is a hybrid between a typical mental disorder and an addiction. It differs from other addictions because of the remorse, shame and guilt that closely follows a binge eating episode, unlike other binge activities such as binge drinking. The shame and guilt leads to a depression that gives this disorder a dual prong effect. It not only affects sufferers emotionally, but physically as well.
It all begins with some sad feelings or maybe just day to day stress. A vulnerable person looks to soothe their feelings and they turn to the one thing they have learned will soothe them and comfort them. It’s the same thing that they turn to when they were babies, food. The food satisfies there temporal needs as well as their emotional needs at the time. Without a way to stop, they continue to eat and eat. People around them begin to recognize they suffer from compulsive overeating.
After the eating comes the guilt and the shame. The shame comes from losing control of their basic need for food. They feel guilty for the weight they have put on. This guilt and shame brings on depression that can cause another compulsive overeating episode or they can do more drastic measures that harms their health in the long term.