Did you know there are actually three eating disorders doctors are now trained to spot? Anorexia and bulimia, which we’ve all heard of, but also an eating disorder called binge eating disorder.
Binge eating disorder, in fact, is becoming a huge problem and is just as detrimental to a person’s health as anorexia and bulimia, said Dr. Aleah Gibson, a family medicine doctor at St. Elizabeth Physicians’ Aurora, Ind., office.
True to its name, binge eating is when a person binge eats, and it’s affecting all age groups, not just adolescents. It’s when you have recurrent binge-eating episodes accompanied by a loss of control and a feeling of guilt afterward, Gibson said, and, unlike anorexia and bulimia ““ in which people typically cut calories or over-exercise or purge to lose weight ““ people with binge eating disorder binge eat as a coping mechanism to deal with stress or society.
Red flags for a parent to look for in any kind of eating disorder include a tendency to be overly conscious about his or her body image, a tendency to be overly conscious about calories, a tendency to exercise compulsively, changes to behavior, amenorrhea (the stopping of a girl’s period), a tendency to eat rapidly or until he or she is too full, eating when he or she is not hungry, or eating alone.
If you notice any of these symptoms, you should call your child’s pediatrician or family medicine doctor, Gibson said.
“It’s one of those situations where, if a kid likes it or not, he or she has to come in and talk about it,” she said.
Physicians typically will check a child’s vital signs and order lab work if they think there could be an eating disorder at play, as well as look at the child’s growth chart.
“If there’s been a sudden change, it could signal a problem,” Gibson said.
The problem, of course, with eating disorders is that there’s not a medication that will completely cure them without incorporating other interventions, as well, such as individual and family therapy.
