How to Deal with Binge Eating in Kids

Carson ate and ate. There seemed to be no satiation in him. His body seemed like a bottomless pit. After a grand dinner at home, all the leftover food was consumed by Carson. He ate even when he was not hungry. He would shut himself up in his room and eat, because he was embarrassed of his binge eating. He would go on eating even if his stomach hurt and was uncomfortably full. He ate fast, as though he was scared that someone would grab his food and run away. The sad thing about all this was that he often felt disgusted and depressed after binge eating.

Needless to say, his weight remained high all the time, and was rapidly increasing. His parents were worried sick of his binge eating. Their coaxing, bribing and threatening him did nothing to reduce his endless desire for food. The family doctor began talking about the diseases that he was at risk of getting, such as diabetes. Yet, Carson found his binge eating uncontrollable. Finally, the family consulted a psychologist. He gave some concrete tips for Carsen and his family to apply to daily life.

Find out the root cause

Kids may binge-eat mainly due to stress and anxiety. If this seems to be the cause, the family or the main care takers should give plenty of emotional support. This is especially true when the child is going through major events in her life such as important examinations or a breakup with a friend. Kids with low self-esteem also tend to binge eat. They could be kids who were criticized too much throughout their childhood. The criticism leads them to believe that they are unworthy. This leads to low self-esteem. This in turn leads to binge eating. it is a vicious cycle.

Get treatment

Many kids who binge eat are depressed clinically. If this is confirmed, the child has to undergo treatment – both talk therapy and medicines.  The talk therapy or psycho-therapy includes Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), especially enhanced CBT (CBT-E). Other useful tools are Integrative cognitive-affective therapy (ICAT) and Dialectical behavior therapy. Approved medicines for binge eating disorder include Lisdexamfetamine dimesylate (Vyvanse). Treatment for depression is quite varied. There are many psychiatric drugs available to treat depression.

Make changes in eating style at home

Get rid of all snacks from home. Parents often stock up on snacks thinking that kids get hungry all the time and they have to eat something. In fact, apart from breakfast, lunch and dinner, kids need to be given food only between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and dinner. This means they need to snack only around 10 am in the morning, and around 4 pm in the evening. Parents should take care to see that healthy snacks are available at these times. Fruits are the best option. However, a high protein and high fat snack such as nuts would be a good choice too.

Lifestyle changes

The family needs to adopt certain rules so that children will be dissuaded from binge eating. For example, do not eat anything while watching TV. Watching a movie, or video on your mobile phone, laptop or TV is the perfect opportunity to eat passively. When you eat passively, you eat large amounts without realizing that you are full.

Find substitutes

It is normal for any child to sometimes want to eat sweet food. When they crave sweet food, let them eat dates or some such sweet fruit. Instead of fizzy and sugary drinks like Sprite, Coke or 7Up, let the kids have plain water, or soda water. If they want a sweet drink, let it be lime juice with honey added. The effect of these changes on binge eating is indirect. These changes will help the child to reduce weight. When they reduce weight, their self-esteem increases, which will lead to less binge eating.

Stay away from dieting

Extreme dieting that involves starving oneself is counterproductive. What happens is that extreme dieting is often followed by binge eating, which then is followed by extreme dieting. And so on. This is a vicious cycle that should be avoided.

Plan ahead for triggering situations

There may be situations when kids cannot resist binge eating. An example is a function at home when plenty of food items are available. This is likely to trigger a binge-eating episode. Parents should help kids to plan what to do at these times, when kids are around foods that are tempting.