Binge Eating Support

• It’s normal for teenagers to experience difficult feelings; this could make someone prone to eating to avoid these feelings

• Teenagers can be stubborn

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Teens that are experiencing uncomfortable emotions may turn to food. This is usually for comfort or it is an attempt to gain control or stability in their environment. Older kids may have been binging for years or they may have just started, so treatments can vary widely.
 
Older children, depending on their age, don’t have complete freedom to change their circumstances or environment. An adult would be able to avoid distressing situations, but they usually cannot. Kids have an innate need for stability and safety, but some don’t have those things in their lives. This could be due to a dysfunctional home or it could be from a stressful situation that wasn’t related to their home/family.
 
“Whateva, whateva, I do what I want!”
 
Control is one reason teens might binge, eat compulsively, diet and obsess about their bodies. Since they can’t control much else about their environment, controlling their food intake can give them the sense of safety and security they need.
 
Kids that eat in order to gain a sense of control will likely not react well to your attempts to stop their behavior. You may succeed in keeping food from your child, but then you would have exerted control over her. The end result of this will be that she becomes even more obsessed with food- it now represents even more power than before.
 
You may think, “So what? If I just take the food away from her that I don’t want her eating, she won’t gain weight and she won’t be able to binge or eat compulsively. Then the problem will be solved.”
 
Unfortunately, the answer may not be so easy. You’re caught between a rock and a hard place when you have a teenager showing signs of an eating disorder and you’re trying to help. The more you take control of the child’s food, the more he wants control back. Of course, as the parent, you will probably win out…for awhile. If the situation escalates, your child is on the road to an eating disorder. Even if you make sure that binging doesn’t happen while you’re in charge, you won’t be in charge forever.
 
One day, your kid will become an adult. With years of reinforcement of the idea that food = control and no one dictating what he should eat, the odds are higher that he will have developed a full-blown eating disorder. 
 
Food as Comfort
 
Another major reason teens might develop compulsive eating habits or binge is that they are trying to comfort themselves.
 
For almost everyone- regardless of whether they have eating disorders or not- food can be very comforting. There is a lot of speculation as to why this is, from food causing the release of feel-good brain chemicals to our association of eating with the comfort of our mothers. As soon as we’re born, our mother feeds us and a positive association is created: comfort and safety goes with food.
 
So it’s not surprising that almost everyone indulges in food for comfort sometimes. But for people with BED or compulsive overeating, this turns into a habit they cannot control. It becomes their way of coping with negative feelings. Teenagers are no different in this regard.
 
One way you can tell that your child is eating to self-soothe is if her binges or compulsive need to eat occurs right after something upsetting has happened to her. For instance, your daughter might come home from school upset because she just got into a bad argument with her best friend. Soon after she comes in the door, she’s got a whole box of cookies and it’s looking like she intends to eat all of them.
 
Sometimes, the child’s binging will happen right after something reminds him of a distressing situation that happened in the past. An example might be that he raids the fridge when someone mentions their father calling them up…but his father hasn’t called him or come to see him in over a year.
 
 
FAQ: Helping a Teen Who Binges or Overeats Compulsively
 
I think my teenage child has an eating problem. What can I do to stop it?
 
Fortunately, you have already taken the first step. You’re taking the time to read information about these sorts of eating problems, which is one of the most important things you can do. So many things about compulsive eating and binge eating disorder are counter-intuitive, which is why people can spend a lifetime struggling against them.
 
Especially when dealing with a teen exhibiting disordered eating behavior or obsessing about dieting, finding a therapist or psychiatrist that specializes in eating disorders is the next step. While some family doctors understand eating disorders well, they’re very rare. Surprisingly, many counselors and therapists fail to recognize eating disorders as well. Your best option is to get a consultation with someone who understands eating disorders, because they are the ones likely to recognize and offer useful information for a client with BED.
 
Above, I mentioned that a parent trying to help an older child with an eating problem is in a sticky situation. The parent probably has control over what food the kid has access to. It seems logical to exercise this control so the child cannot binge. But as we’re seeing, BED is not logical.
 
Controlling your child’s food will probably only serve to make the problem worse. The problem may look like it’s about food, but it’s not. BED and compulsive eating are all about the child’s thought process that leads him to binge. If the kid is binging because it makes him feel like he’s got some control over his life, your taking control of his food may backfire. Food will become even more important to him. Even if you make sure he can’t indulge those cravings, they are still there. He will seek out other ways to comfort himself and obtain safety/stability, often through substance abuse and/or developing new obsessive or compulsive behaviors.
 
When dealing with an adult who has BED, concerned friends and family members are told not to pressure her on issues related to food or weight/dieting. This is just one more way that the treatment of BED is counter-intuitive. When it’s a teenager who has BED, the situation is more complicated. People with BED recover best when the people in their lives avoid those touchy subjects and allow them to work on recovering from BED at their own pace.
 
Low or no pressure is just as helpful for teens as it is for adults. The problem is, a parent has an obligation to care for her child’s health- even if the child is a teenager. She is also the one who makes decisions as to what’s best for the teen and makes sure the child receives medical care when necessary. So a parent has to strike the right balance between caring for her child and implementing a solution that will really work. This is why an eating disorder specialist is so important. They can help you find effective ways to handle the situation.
 
 
What if I’m Not the Teenager’s Parent, but I Still Want to Help?
 
Maybe you’re here looking for information on how to help a teenager who is showing signs of BED or compulsive eating, but you’re not his parent.
 
There are things you can do to help a child who seems to have an eating problem. If you’ve read the info above, you already know that talking about food, dieting and weight is more likely to make the child’s problem worse, not better.
 
Often, a child who is about to binge or compulsively eat is trying to deal with negative emotions, such as loneliness, boredom or sadness. If you’ve noticed a kid is developing that sort of problem, you may be able to tell what it is that the child is trying to cope with. He wants to use food to make himself feel better, but as an adult, you may be able to tell what he’s really looking for. Is he lonely or isolated? Do the adults around him spend time with him? Chances are very good that simply spending some time with the child will give him what he really needs. Talk to him, acknowledge him or give him a compliment that is the opposite of the put-downs he gets from the kids at school or at home.