icyou's Medical Editor, P. Mona Khanna, MD, MPH, talks about binge eating and what to look for when someone has this type of eating disorder.
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Mona Khanna: The third eating disorder then is Binge eating and that is men or women who like to eat great amounts of food I mean we've heard accounts of somebody who'll gone empty the refrigerator and then after that, they will may or may not throw it up, but then they won't eat as much for perhaps several days at a time. Binge eating is also classified as an eating disorder. But this is the eating disorder that is most likely to affect men. And the reason is simple. It's because you sit, you eat a large amount of food and men generally can take in more food than women. And not only that it more accepted for men to eat larger amounts of food. But a normal person can't as much as they are eating. You will notice that they do it repeatedly, may be not at every meal, but perhaps after a few days, they will do it again and a few days they will do it again etcetera. So think the clue about binge eating is, if somebody is eating an amount of food that you would not expect a normal person to be able to eat. Now this person doesn't necessarily have to be underweight. He or she can be overweight, but they are not usually underweight. The reason for that is, because our bodies are not programmed to be able to metabolize and break down large amounts of food and have it go out of the system. So all of that extra food, all that extra protein and the carbs and the fat are stored on our body as fat. And so that could be one of the signs of some who is binge eating is, they are eating large amounts of food and they may be overweight or obese, not necessarily underweight.
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