- Eat large quantities of food when not hungry, feeling guilty and self-loathing afterwards
- Feeling out of control around food
- Preoccupation with food, weight, and body shape
- May alternate between periods of compulsive eating and dieting
- May exercise constantly
- Depression, anxiety, low self-esteem
Compulsive eating feels like eating that is out of control. Women who eat compulsively don't eat according to feelings of hunger and satiation. Compulsive eaters often alternate between periods of dieting and overeating. Compulsive eaters may also exercise daily, and feel terrified that they will gain weight if they miss a workout.
Like anorexia and bulimia, compulsive eating often begins following a diet. A woman may diet and restrict food in an effort to lose weight. Soon, the restriction on food intake feels overwhelming and she begins to crave her favourite foods, forbidden on a restrictive diet. Ultimately, she eats, breaking her diet, and feels guilty and disgusted with herself and her perceived lack of control over her eating.
Food, for compulsive eaters, fills deep emotional and physical needs. Food may represent comfort, an escape, and a way to deal with complex emotional needs that may be unmet. Food often fills a relationship, occupational, educational, or emotional void. Food may provide a means of coping with deeply rooted problems and may be a great comfort to a woman. The emotional needs that food represent are varied and individual.
Compulsive eaters rarely eat according to natural rhythms of hunger and satiation and lose their ability to trust that their body will instruct them to eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full. Compulsive eating often goes hand-in-hand with chronic dieting.
