One reason that internal, subjective factors such as feelings of loss of control are so essential to the definition of binge eating is because it is difficult to obtain general agreement on exactly how much food constitutes a binge. Dr. William Johnson and his colleagues at the University of Mississippi Medical Center set out to answer the question of what most people consider to be binge eating. He asked a group of overweight binge eaters to keep detailed written food diaries of what they ate each day. A total of 746 eating episodes were recorded.
The subjects in the study were then asked to judge which of these episodes they would consider to be binges. Dr. Johnson next asked a separate group of people who were neither overweight nor binge eaters to rate the same eating episodes as to whether or not they were binges. Finally, he enlisted the aid of dietitians and asked them to determine which of these eating episodes were binges.
After all the judgments were compared, Dr. Johnson found a high level of agreement between the dietitians' ratings and the ratings of the normal, nonbinge eaters. Both groups tended to rate the same eating episodes as binges. There was little agreement between the judgments of either of these groups with the binge eaters. The binge eaters labeled many more of their eating episodes as binges, even those with less food involved. They were defining a binge more by their feelings of lack of control than by the type or amount of food eaten. These findings show that perceived loss of control (which may vary considerably from person to person) is crucial in defining binge eating. |
