Binge Eating: Should We Legalize All Foods? by Joan Kent, PhD
Most experts on binge eating look at it from a psychological and behavioral viewpoint, and many of the same recommendations come up over and over.
Tips that emerge again and again tend to be about eating mindfully: staying present; focusing on the meal, not watching TV; eating while seated; putting the food on a plate; slowing down; breathing deeply.
Some experts add a physiological component – keeping glucose levels even. Those practitioners advise eating at regular intervals, eating a balanced diet, not skipping meals, and not dieting too strictly. These suggestions are meant to prevent ravenous hunger and glucose drops that may lead to bingeing.
Other experts warn against judging foods as good or bad. They suggest “legalizing” all foods and eating favorite foods, but in moderation.
While these factors do seem important, it’s interesting that most experts’ tips are so similar to those of other experts.
It’s also interesting that brain chemistry appears to be missing.
Moderation Is Not Do-able for Some People
Not everyone can achieve moderation around every food. Not everyone can successfully legalize all foods. This is where food addictions enter the picture.
It’s also where genetic tendencies enter.
A parent who binge eats will not necessarily have children who binge eat. But particular food preferences in a parent may suggest susceptibilities to binge eating in their kids.
In my doctoral study, for example, all participants were binge eaters, and over 65% of them had fathers who were partial to breads or pasta.
Another factor is a parent’s addiction to alcohol or drugs. That may make their offspring susceptible to binge eating. The genetic link is about neurochemistry: low baseline levels of specific brain chemicals that show an exaggerated rise when certain foods are consumed.
Those foods set off a neurochemical reaction that leads to bingeing.
Sometimes It IS About the Food
Most experts claim that binge eating “is not about the food.” Rather, they say, it’s about the emotions that prompt the binge.
But my pioneering doctoral research revealed that removing addictive foods from the diet can go a long way toward ending binges. Sugar was a primary culprit. Sugar itself, and cravings for it, were frequent binge triggers.
Without the addictive trigger of sugar, the binges stopped, and so did cravings. With brain chemistry stabilized, participants’ behavior and emotions were less volatile. That made it easier to look at emotional triggers and more.
So it may be about the food, after all. Getting off sugar is job 1. Then you can analyze – over and over and over and over – all the emotional issues you like.
And that’s why I take a neurochemical approach to binge eating. The neurochemical perspective on binge eating can bring a significant – and stabilizing – dimension to otherwise important work on binge eating that’s being done by Experts.
There’s much to say about brain chemistry and bingeing. If you binge eat and would like to stop, perfect. That’s what I do. Just grab your free Stop Bingeing Consult at LastResortNutrition.com . Discover how easy it can be to handle this so-called “emotional” problem. Even before the emotional issues are uncovered.
Brought to you by Dr. Joan Kent, best-selling author of Stronger Than Sugar.
