Physical causes of binge eating
and other eating disorders

Some physical causes of binge eating and other contributory factors can include:

Obesity: not by itself, but as a factor in how a person feels about themselves and how they react to it. For instance by getting trapped in a cycle of yo-yo dieting (see below).

Brain chemicals: How we eat can have a great effect on our brain chemistry, and visa-versa. You can learn more about this in this website. Endorphins, blood sugars, serotonin levels and adrenalin, all play their part. When these are out of balance through disordered eating patterns, such imbalances can exacerbate the causes of binge eating and the other eating disorders.

Picture by Jenny Downing on flickr.com

Metabolism: This is the rate at which our body burns energy for all the chemical reactions to occur in our cells. If we are restricting our eating, missing meals or otherwise going for long periods without food, then our metabolic rate can drop.
This is as our body strives to conserve energy in reaction to the lack of food supply. In other words, the rate at which we burn energy - and therefore our fat reserves - slows down. So it becomes harder to lose weight! In reaction, it is common for people to restrict their eating even more as they try harder to lose weight, compounding the problem.

This is unsustainable, and the sufferer may over-react to the food restriction and the emotional turmoil it creates, so becoming one of the causes of binge eating.
Genetics: We are all genetically programmed to store fat, and to have a liking for high energy foods - it's for survival! But some of us will have a genetic tendency to do this more successfully than others, and so will gain weight easier than others, and find it harder to lose than others.

Physical changes in the body, especially during adolescence, and how an individual feels and reacts to them. See 'psychological causes' for more information on this.

Dieting: - it keeps cropping up in the research as one of the causes of eating disorders! Especially repeating cycles of dieting, then putting the weight back on, and dieting again. Obviously not every one who diets will end up with an eating disorder, and neither does this mean that everyone with an eating disorder has tried dieting before! But the research does seem to show a connection.

Dieting is also a clear example of how causes of binge eating have physical, emotional and social aspects all wrapped up in them.

To illustrate:

A person is dissatisfied with their body shape and so they go on a diet to lose weight. The diet is a restrictive one and un-sustainable as a way of living, and the person fails to reach their desired weight (as in reality it is an unrealistic expectation anyway, born out of societies fashions and ideals).

So the diet fails, leading the person to feel disappointed and believing that they have failed (when in fact it is the diet that has failed them!). The person feels that they have lost control and that they are weak. This results in even lower self esteem.

In reaction, the person 'gives up' and goes on "a bit of a binge", knowing that they can start the diet again tomorrow or another day.

They find (even subconsciously) that the food, which is especially of the kind of foods that the diet has banned them from eating, temporarily dulls the pain (see 'brain chemistry' and its link with the causes of binge eating). It makes them feels better for a while.

They go back to the way they were eating before the diet, and slowly (or not so slowly!) all the weight goes back on - and some!

So they start another diet. This time they are even stricter with themselves than before (or they try a different 'fad' diet), believing that it was their lack of will power that leads them to fail the first time.

Once again, the restrictive nature of the diet is un-sustainable and they are hungry a lot of the time. Eventually, they cannot carry this on for long, and they have another 'binge', which immediately gives them a feeling of relief.

The next morning, they feel guilty about what they ate yesterday, and they determine to do better today. They skip a meal to make up for it. And the next day. Now they find they are thinking about food all the time. They have a stressful day, and their partner upsets them at home. Almost instinctively, they turn to food as a way to feel better and they comfort eat - only to feel guilty again, and so they determine to eat less the next day…

And so on!

Without realising it is happening, they are slipping into a vicious cycle of binging, dieting, binging and dieting.

This is obviously a very simplified example of how a history of dieting can lead towards a binge eating problem, but I hope it helps illustrate the point.

So that is a brief summary of just SOME of the possible physical causes of binge eating and other eating problems. Read our other pages to learn about the