Definition
Signs
Physical/Medical Complications
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.
Compulsive overeating usually starts in early childhood when eating patterns are formed. Most people who become compulsive eaters are people who never learned the proper way to deal with stressful situations and used food instead as a way of coping. Fat can also serve as a protective function for them, especially in people that have been victims of sexual abuse. They sometimes feel that being overweight will keep others at a distance and make them less attractive. Unlike anorexia and bulimia, there is a high proportion of male overeaters.
The more weight that is gained, the harder they try to diet and dieting is usually what leads to the next binge, which can be followed by feelings of powerlessness, guilt, shame and failure. Dieting and bingeing can go on forever if the emotional reasons for the bingeing is not dealt with.
In today’s society, compulsive overeating is not yet taken seriously enough. Instead of being treated for the serious problem they have, they are instead directed to diet centers and health spas. Like anorexia and bulimia, compulsive overeating is a serious problem and can result in death. With the proper treatment, which should include therapy, medical and nutritional counseling, it can be overcome. Learn more about treatment.
- 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
Physical/Medical Complications
- Weight gain
- Hypertension or fatigue
- Heart ailments
- Mobility problems
- Diabetes
- Arthritis
- Sciatica
- Varicose veins
- Hiatal hernia
- Embolism
- Sleep depravation
- Toxemia during pregnancy
- High blood pressure
- Shortness of breath
- High Cholesterol levels
- Cardiac arrest and death
One of the most successful programs that specializes in treating eating disorders is the Milestones Program. They have many years of experience treating compulsive overeaters, and their programs help both the affected individual and their family. You can follow this link to the 
Milestones In Recovery Website to learn more, and see how they can help you.
Written by: Colleen Thompson
Resources:
-Surviving an Eating Disorder: Perspectives and Strategies for Family and Friends by Michelle Siegel, Ph.D., Judith Brisman, Ph.D., and Margot Weinshel, Ph.D. – Harper & Row Publishers, NY, 1988
-Walking A Thin Line by Pam Vredevelt and Joyce Whitman – Mullnomah Press, Oregon 1985
-Eating Disorders Handout – Sudbury General Hospital Eating Disorders Clinic (information for handout obtained from NEDIC)