Confessions Of A Nurse Who Compulsively Eats

Compulsive eating disorder, also known as binge eating disorder, is a problem for millions of sufferers. However, this affliction lingers in the shadow of less prevalent eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa. The purpose of this article is to shed some light on compulsive eating disorder. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

Confessions Of A Nurse Who Compulsively Eats

I've previously mentioned that an individual cannot begin to address a problem without first admitting that he or she has one. Well, my name is TheCommuter and I am a long-time compulsive eater. There it is!

Compulsive eating disorder, also referred to as binge eating disorder, entails periods in which the afflicted person consumes large quantities of food without regard to feelings of physical hunger or fullness. Also, compulsive eaters greatly outnumber bulimics and anorexics in the United States. According to the Binge Eating Disorder Association (2011), this problem affects more than eight million men and women and accounts for three times the number of those diagnosed with anorexia and bulimia together.

Professionals and experts have long argued that compulsive eating patterns have a strong emotional component.

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Thompson (2011) contends that compulsive overeating is characterized by uncontrollable eating and consequent weight gain. Compulsive overeaters use food as a way to cope with stress, emotional conflicts and daily problems. The food can block out feelings and emotions. Compulsive overeaters usually feel out of control and are aware their eating patterns are abnormal. Like bulimics, compulsive overeaters do recognize they have a problem.
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Signs and symptoms of compulsive eating:
  • Binge eating
  • Fear of not being able to stop eating voluntarily
  • Depression
  • Self-deprecating thoughts following binges
  • Withdrawing from activities because of embarrassment about weight
  • Going on many different diets
  • Eating little in public, while maintaining a high weight
  • Believing they will be a better person when thin
  • Feelings about self based on weight
  • Social and professional failures attributed to weight
  • Feeling tormented by eating habits
  • Weight is focus of life

Compulsive Eating .........Causes, Signs and Symptoms, Complications, Getting Help

Multiple health problems may happen as the result of long-standing compulsive eating disorder, including putting on weight that leads to overweight and obesity, joint pain, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, digestive issues, cardiac disease, and a whole host of other ailments. If left uncontrolled, the compulsive overeater might endure an untimely death.

I first noticed that I had a distorted relationship with food during my middle childhood years. My father was verbally abusive toward me, especially when he was drunk, and I numbed the emotional pain with food. After all, eating felt much better than bursting into tears on a daily basis after hearing my father tell me that I was stupid or that he would put his foot "up my ***." In addition, my mother started anesthetizing her emotional issues in her early twenties by overeating. She still compulsively overeats to this very day, and has the morbidly obese body habitus, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and stage 3 chronic kidney disease to show for it.

Having never learned to properly deal with emotions, I spent my middle childhood and adolescence as a slightly overweight girl. I never quite became obese because I would go on a strict diet as soon as the weight scale would creep upward. Even so, I always regained the pounds plus more since my warped eating habits always returned with full force.

One day, at age 26, I got onto the scale and was horrified to see that I weighed 216 pounds, which is hefty on a short 5'1" frame. I was now obese! While compulsively eating, I would always tell myself that this would be my last unhealthy meal while promising to make drastic changes with diet and exercise tomorrow. To keep a long story short, I changed my eating habits by attempting to separate emotion from food, and ended up losing enough pounds to achieve a near-normal weight.

I am 31 years old and will always have issues with food. In fact, I still binge on occasion after a rough shift at work because it feels comforting. I wish I could seek professional help for this problem and the rest of my underlying emotional issues, but I am uninsured at this time. Millions of people are compulsive eaters, the majority of whom are keenly aware that something is very wrong. Overeaters Anonymous (www.oa.org) is a free resource. With the proper help, compulsive eating disorder can be conquered.

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TheCommuter

About TheCommuter, BSN, RN

TheCommuter, BSN, RN, CRRN is a longtime physical rehabilitation nurse who has varied experiences upon which to draw for her articles. She was an LPN/LVN for more than four years prior to becoming a Registered Nurse.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Wow, Commuter......you just told the story of MY life, only with my mother being the critical parent (not to mention eating-disordered herself). I've battled compulsive eating since my teens, even though I was never hugely overweight until I started having children. Now, well into my 50s, I've pretty much lost the battle of the bulge, and I have the metabolic syndrome, sleep apnea, DM, and leg edema to show for it. The irony is that I eat far less now than I did when I was younger, but I wear every single calorie.

Congratulations on achieving a good weight for you, and thank you for writing this!!

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Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.

I too suffer from this. My mother was a drug addicted alcoholic who abandoned her family. She had custody of me and my siblings for a little while and that was when I first learned how comforting and numbing eating large amounts of food can be. I was a size 12 all through out my life until I was 25. My eating habits ranged from eating 1000's of calories a day to starving myself because I didn't know how to regulate myself. Then I went on medication that caused me to gain more weight. Then I figured what the hell....might as well give up. I am 250 lbs. I'm going to counseling to figure why I will eat until I am literally hanging over my toilet trying not to vomit...and then 15 min later when there isn't as much pressure in my stomach (my body starts to digest what's in there)....I want to eat more even though I know it will make me sick again. It's so tough to control.

My counselor says for me, it's all about control. (My life was so out of control when I was younger, and then when my dad and step mom and grandmother, and friends, and other relatives, and friends' moms, etc...would try to talk me into dieting, it was my way of rebelling.) I'm in pretty good shape; I do half marathons and am doing an 8k on Thanksgiving. I love working out. I should be lean and thinner, but I eat so much that it more than off sets the exercise. I have found through exercise that the urge to numb out and eat lessens. I think it's because my mind kind of goes blank when I run/walk for miles. I think it's kind of like meditating.

Wish you luck with this! From what I understand, I will always struggle with this. Food is constantly on my mind. It sucks. It's incredibly hard to explain to someone who thinks all fat people are just lazy and who have never had a weight issue in their life.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
Food is constantly on my mind. It sucks. It's incredibly hard to explain to someone who thinks all fat people are just lazy and who have never had a weight issue in their life.
From the time I awaken, I think about what and when I am going to eat.

I should also mention that I compulsively eat high-fat, high-carb food items such as pizza, tacos, cheeseburgers, and fried finger foods. I also have an affinity for pastries and baked goods (donuts, pound cake, danishes, muffins). It's hard to explain, but unhealthy foods have always provided me with transient comfort that disappears very the moment my plate is empty.

It would be nice if I could crave or desire healthy foods such as raw broccoli crowns or steamed Brussels sprouts, but I must force myself to eat veggies.

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Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.
From the time I awaken, I think about what and when I am going to eat.

I should also mention that I compulsively eat high-fat, high-carb food items such as pizza, tacos, cheeseburgers, and fried finger foods. I also have an affinity for pastries and baked goods (donuts, pound cake, danishes, muffins). It's hard to explain, but unhealthy foods have always provided me with transient comfort that disappears very the moment my plate is empty.

It would be nice if I could crave or desire healthy foods such as raw broccoli crowns or steamed Brussels sprouts, but I must force myself to eat veggies.

Same here. My counselor told me actually to keep some of that stuff (pizza is my favorite) in the house so it becomes less "forbidden." Part of my problem is my parents put me on my first diet at 13 and have (trying to help, not meaning to hurt) nagged me and nagged me and put me down and forced me on diets (when I was a kid) and picked on me for what I was eating, etc etc, for most of my life. I snuck food for years as a teenager.

I do find that it helps to eat frozen veggies. I will literally eat an entire bag of frozen veggies with some butter and salt or bowls of salad until the urge to binge goes away because I figure it's gotta be better than eating a pizza or whatever.

And it's so tough to explain. It's not like when it's fun to eat and you are enjoying yourself and the food tastes good. When I binge, I'm usually anxious, upset, worried. I don't taste the food. I barely chew it. I barely stop to breathe. I am eating so fast. It feels so bad, but it stops the anxiety. Nothing calms me as immediately as binging does. My counselor says nothing will feel as good at that does and I just have to accept that. Then focus on activities that help the anxiety like my running.

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Specializes in LTC, Management, MDS Nurse, Rehab.

I have just started attending OA for this problem.

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Specializes in LTC and School Health.

I struggle with this too. After a hard shift, sometimes I'll grab fast food for comfort. Then, after eating that whopper and fries I feel guilty. Yeah, I need to get a handle on this. I lost 20 lbs earlier this year, I don't want the weight to creep back on.

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Specializes in Rural Health.
I struggle with this too. After a hard shift, sometimes I'll grab fast food for comfort. Then, after eating that whopper and fries I feel guilty. Yeah, I need to get a handle on this. I lost 20 lbs earlier this year, I don't want the weight to creep back on.

Guilty here too!! I lost 30 lbs last summer and was doing a pretty good job of keeping it off until this summer when it slowly started creeping back on and then over the last couple months it really started! I can eat super healthy all week but then it seems like I always find one day that I have to binge and it all goes down hill for a couple days.

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As you note in your statistics from the Binge Eating Disorder Association and from the very moving comments posted to your article, you are not alone. One reason you aren't alone is that binge eating is an addiction, a disease of a damaged brain. Substance abuse researchers say that the brain adaptions that result from regularly eating so-called hyperpalatable foods – foods that layer salt, fat, and sweet flavors, proven to increase consumption – are likely to be more difficult to change than those from cocaine or alcohol because they involve many more neural pathways. Almost 90 percent of the doparmine receptors in the vental tegmenta; area (VTA) of the brain are activated in response to food cues.

Brand-new research also shows direct evidence of lasting and fundamental injuries to a part of the brain that helps us regulate our food intake, the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus. Within three days of being placed on a high-fat diet, a rat’s hypothalamus shows increased inflammation; within a week, researchers see evidence of permanent scarring and neuron injury in an area of the brain crucial for weight control. Brain scans of obese men and women show this exact pattern as well.

The good news -- and there IS good news -- is that a program of foods high in dopamine- and serotonin-boosting chemicals, along with numerous brain-amping activities (from simple exercise to listening to music) can regrow those receptors and bring the confidence of fulfillment and health.

You CAN learn to live with your eating disorder. There is lots of low-cost help available, from 12-step programs to the latest research in the science of food addiction to inexpensive workouts to free meditation classes in your area. Good luck to all of you -- I hope to hear of growing success among our medical community.

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Specializes in LTC, Hospice, Case Management.
Wow, Commuter......you just told the story of MY life, only with my mother being the critical parent (not to mention eating-disordered herself). I've battled compulsive eating since my teens, even though I was never hugely overweight until I started having children. Now, well into my 50s, I've pretty much lost the battle of the bulge, and I have the metabolic syndrome, sleep apnea, DM, and leg edema to show for it. The irony is that I eat far less now than I did when I was younger, but I wear every single calorie.

Congratulations on achieving a good weight for you, and thank you for writing this!!

To Viva and Thecommuter: I confess, when I start these articles (that appear on the homepage of AN) it doesn't tell me who the author is until I actually click it open. It has become my own little game to "guess the author" prior to actually clicking on the link and I guess correctly 95% of the time or more, based on content and tone of the article. I guessed this one wrong! Thought for sure this was Viva's article but low and behold, you came around and confirmed for me that at least I'm not nuts. :)

Just want to say Thanks to both of you and let you both know that I enjoy all your articles. Keep them coming.

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Specializes in OB/GYN/Neonatal/Office/Geriatric.

Ditto here: alcoholic step-parent, abusive father, dysfunction, dysfunction, dysfunction. I am fatter than I have ever been and I am 52. Food is like a drug, a high like no other. Better than sex! I quit smoking cold turkey 22 years ago, but dieting is something I struggle with. Changing my life style is what I know I need to do, but just can't seem to do it. Now I work with nurses who are in the same boat as I am. I think we as nurses are a special population that lives with high stress, willing to care for others, but not always able to care for ourselves. Thanks for sharing your story and good luck to you on your journey!

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Wow !! I am glad to see I am not alone .I am at my biggest ever now 340lb and barley tie my shoes and had to go out and get slip ons I also got myself stuck in both the last time I went out with my friends so that has to be a new low,I am looking into bypass surgery at this point I also have a bad Compulsive shopping problem that started after my mom died I do not even remember buying most of the stuff I order and have unopened boxes of stuff all over the place .

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