Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is relatively unknown, but it is much more common than anorexia and bulimia. Patients suffer from compulsive binge eating, but show no compensatory behavior afterwards.
It was only in 2013 that BED was included as a separate disorder in the psychology bible, the DSM-V. The main difference from anorexia and bulimia is that people who suffer from BED do not vomit, lax, exercise excessively or diet to compensate for their regular binge eating. As a result, these patients can suffer from morbid obesity and serious health damage.
It is estimated that about two percent of the population has compulsive binge eating every week. Another 1.5 percent have a disorder similar to BED. Unlike other eating disorders, there are relatively many male BED patients. The disease is accompanied by feelings of guilt, shame and disgust.
Pieter (57) tells anonymously at RTL News about his disorder. “Even if you are not physically hungry at all, just after an evening meal for example, you just have to eat. I got a weird feeling in my stomach, started shaking and then I was pulled like a magnet to that fridge, like a junkie to a fix.”
In the end he had a BMI of 46. “I didn’t even dare to eat ice cream when I was out with my family, so to speak, because I was afraid of what people would say about me behind my back. don’t hide. You stand out like a black dot on a white background, and the stigma is great.”
