BINGE EATING IN ATHLETES
What Is Binge Eating?
Binge Eating disorder (BED) is characterized in DSM-5 by consuming large amounts of food and the sense that one cannot control his o her eating behavior. Binge eating rates are higher in those who are overweight. According to Stanford Children’s Hospitals states that Binge-eating disorder is linked to a loss of control overeating. People with this disorder eat huge amounts of food at a time without purging. They feel extreme shame and guilt afterward.
Misconceptions of Binge Eating
Some stereotypes involve binge eating disorders, usually, that it is not a "real" eating disorder or that it just has to do with the loss of self-control when it comes to eating. Binge eating disorder is a significant psychological disorder that can negatively influence a person's life if left unaddressed and untreated.
Another general assumption that people with binge eating disorders must be overweight or obese; however, weight and height are not the standards determining this eating disorder. Even the most professional and qualified athletes will battle binge eating disorders.
Why Athletes Suffer From Binge Eating
For most people, an athlete does not suffer and should not suffer from an eating disorder because it is more than obvious when exercising one is exempt from everything when it is the opposite.
According to Eating Disorder Hope, the increased pressures that an athlete might face at a certain level can trigger eating disorders in someone who already has other risk factors.
Other factors that affect athletes to be part of the Binge Eating community:
- Sports that hyper-focus on an athlete’s size and shape
- Stress and pressure on an individual
- Strict diets
- Training regiments during their season
- Feeling "deprived" of certain food while they are in seasons.
Which Athletes Are More Likely To Suffer From Binge Eating Disorder
Each sport has its own, but certain sports require the athlete's body to be at a certain weight, figure, and more. Some of these sports are:
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| Taekwondo Weight Categories |
In these sports, the body and weight play a significant role since some have to "make the weight." This is used to compete in certain divisions, and they have to give the weight to be in that category and not go up and be disqualified. Or be at a weight that is not favorable for the athlete. On the other hand, there are these sports in which athletes are judged by how they look, and having a lean body is much more favorable.
These so-called lean sports, along with weight-class sports, show more binge eating disorder than other sports. (Ray, 2021, p. 358)
Signs That Indicate That An Athlete Is With The Disorder
Eating disorders appear in all sports, athletes of all ages, professional levels, physical characteristics, and gender.
Some signs that all people around athletes must look at are the following:
Eating too little, exercising or training too hard
Increased focus on weight, shape, size, and appearance
Underweight or notable weight loss (Slight shifts in body weight are expected when athletes move in and out of their competitive season)
Abnormal sex hormone cycles (Abnormal sex hormone cycles often signal insufficient energy intake, a hallmark of an eating disorder.)
- Stress fractures and overuse injuries (“No pain, no gain,” frequently pervades the sports environment. Injuries are not a sign of dedication to the sport. )
Inability to stop eating or control what is eaten (After their season, they cannot control their intake of calories)
Stockpiling food to consume secretly at a later time (when they are in the “deprivation” state)
Isolation from social events that involve food
Associated anxiety and depression
Eating normally in the presence of others but gorging when isolated
Experiencing feelings of stress or anxiety that can only be relieved by eating
Feelings of numbness or lack of sensation while bingeing
A recent report from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) found the prevalence of disordered eating to be 20 percent and 13 percent, respectively, among adult and adolescent female elite athletes, eight percent and three percent in an adult and adolescent male elite athletes (Stranberg, 2020).
Preventions To Help Athletes To Overcome Binge Eating
- Develop policies that clearly define the appropriate responses of coaches when dealing with athletes regarding body weight issues and performance
- Design mandatory structured educational and behavioral programs for all athletes, coaches, certified athletic trainers, administrators, and other support personnel to prevent it
- Development of a treatment plan that includes medical surveillance, timely nutritional intervention, and a supportive environment may be all that is necessary to contain incipient problems and promote recovery.
- All athletes should be educated on the importance of optimal nutrition practices to reduce the risk of medical and performance problems associated with prolonged energy and nutrient deprivation.
- Psychology interventions to educate not only the athlete but families and coaches about it
- Many more
Why This Issue Is Important To Me?
Being part of the range of athletes whose sport requires a certain type of weight to be executed, I feel that this problem makes it even more personal. I have been training taekwondo for more than 10 years, you could say that whole life, and before being in the junior category, the weight did not really matter to me. After entering to train in a semi-professional and professional way, Taekwondo is where the idea of a general weight affected me the most. Having to always give weight in competitions, I became more strict, and since my coach also demanded it, I increased the desire to lose weight and be in light categories to be more agile and have an advantage by height. Although a year ago it got out of hand, since wanting to give a weight that I had not tried before, I subjected myself to even more rigorous diets in which I create imbalances in my hormonal cycles, since it did not generate everything necessary to be able to maintain myself, since I had deprived myself of a wide variety of foods that contained carbohydrates and sugars. After having had a streak of outstanding results at that weight, no one could get the idea that this was my weight out of my head no matter how I restricted myself to too many meals and trained excessively. After those events came the worst as binge eating took over as the anxiety to eat went through the roof when seeing foods that had not been eaten in months, gave way to having hours or minutes of eating a large amount of them and At the time of eating them, he felt great guilt and the need to burn everything he had eaten. That routine came and went for many months. After I started eating normally and gaining weight, the idea of going back to the same thing that made me lose my mind and basically torments one and is something that I still live with every day. Since when you keep training and want to return to that weight, it still remains in your mind. So it is important since I know that it can affect us in a different way to a non-athletic person since there are many factors that we carry on our back, and wanting to please everyone makes us forget what matters what is TAKE CARE OF US. I also care about this issue since many of us are uninformed, and until things happen, one does not realize the situation. And dealing with an eating disorder such as Binge Eating is not the most pleasant because although one feels that I could control the idea of having episodes of eating and not eating, they are still in the environment.
References
Karges, C. (2016, March 28). Binge Eating Disorder and Athletes. Eating Disorder Hope. https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/binge-eating-disorder-and-athletes
Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Standford. (n.d.). Default - Stanford Children’s Health. Stanford Children’s Hospital. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=eating-disorders-and-young-athletes-160-28
Stranberg, M. (2020, July 22). Athletes and Eating Disorders: 5 Key Warning Signs. Walden Eating Disorders Treatment. https://www.waldeneatingdisorders.com/blog/athletes-and-eating-disorders-5-key-warning-signs/
Ray, W. J. (2021). Abnormal Psychology. In Eating Disorders (3rd ed., pp. 345–374). SAGE Publications.
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