What is a binge eating disorder? Binge eating disorder exists when a person has recurrent episodes of excessive food consumption and lack of control to stop eating once they start. These episodes must occur in a specific period of time to be considered for clinical diagnosis (DSM, 2013).
What is emotional eating? Emotional eating is when a person uses food to cope with difficult emotions (Macht and Simmons. 2011). Emotional eating is not classified as a clinical eating disorder.
What is the difference between binge eating vs. emotional eating? While emotional eating may be a symptom of binge eating, the main component is the amount of food intake in a single sitting. With binge eating, the food intake is excessive, while with emotional eating, it is solely to cope with emotions and the amount may range between small amounts to excessive amounts (Huddy, J. 2023)
The types of therapies recommended for these eating issues are nutrition therapy, which you can obtain from a registered dietician, CBT or DBT, which you can obtain from a licensed therapist. Regardless of how you choose to address this issue, it’s best to do so with a licensed professional. I am also attaching a couple of workbooks I found online that you may find helpful.
Resources:
Huddy, J. (2023). Binge eating vs. emotional eating: what’s the difference? Nourish. https://www.usenourish.com/blog/binge-eating-vs-emotional-eating
Macht, M., & Simons, G. (2011). Emotional eating. In I. Nykliček, A. Vingerhoets, & M. Zeelenberg (Eds.), Emotion regulation and well-being (pp. 281–295). Springer Science + Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6953-8_17
Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders. (2013). Binge Eating Disorder.
