How many donuts is a "binge"? Women with BED eat more but do not have more restrictive standards than weight-matched non-BED women

Abstract

Theories of disordered eating suggest that binge eating may occur as a response to violations of unrealistically restrictive dietary standards, but there are few direct comparisons of the dietary standards of binge eaters and nonbinge eaters. In this study, we asked obese women with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and weight- and age-matched women without BED to report the minimum amount of each of eight foods they considered a "binge" and "out of control" to determine whether binge eaters had stricter dietary standards than women without BED. Women with BED did not consider smaller amounts of food a "binge" or "out of control" than did women without BED; however, binge eaters did report that their "typical" and "largest-ever" servings of each of the eight foods were larger than those reported by nonbinge eaters. This suggests that for this group of eating- disordered women, eating behaviors may be a more important intervention target than overly restrictive dietary standards.