Compulsive eating disorder often starts
in early childhood.

But here’s some good news, compulsive eating disorder is starting to be taken seriously. Now, many doctors, therapists and support groups are focusing on this eating disorder.

Soon food became my friend that I turned to it whenever I needed comfort. I learned that my over eating smoothed over any hurt feelings that came my way. Food never let me down.

I never learned that these feelings pass with time and that I was capable of dealing with personal problems without my compulsive eating disorder. I developed a habit of eating to numb myself to my problems and got big as a house. Sound familiar?

However, the bad feelings you block out by over eating are only on the back shelf of your brain temporarily. You know you’re fat and you feel guilty, shameful, even disgusted about your overeating. Then you get depressed. Life sucks.

With a compulsive eating disorder, you get caught in this crazy cycle of eating and depression. It's tuff to get off the roller coaster ride.

Because your uncontrollable bouts of over eating are usually an attempt to manage other hidden issues: like depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem.

And the complications of overeating aren’t just emotional. You become obese and increase your risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and the bad boy of them all, cancer (over 6 kinds).

So why is it so hard to stop when we know it’s so bad for us?

Well, when you have a compulsive eating disorder, you usually try every thing you can think of to stop. You may even go to extremes, trying crazy crash diets or inflexible, harsh, draconian approaches to eating.

The irony here is harsh crash dieting is so depriving, that it just ends up creating a situation of even more desperation to eat. So you fall off the wagon…again.

Besides, these extreme measures only help short term with the weight gain. At the end of the day they don’t do anything to remedy the emotional reasons for the compulsive eating.

You've got to nip the emotional problems in the bud. You can't side step them and expect them to go away. Here are 5 suggestions to get you going in the right direction.

1. Have your doctor/ therapist help you identify those triggers which might cause you to overeat, and develop a healthy alternative to your compulsion (running worked for me.)

2. Find an experienced dietician in the treatment of eating disorders to help you develop a meal program to help eliminate the desire to overeat ( you should be eating 5 small meals a day).

3. Keep a diary. Keep track of emotional situations (stress or depression) that often cause you to turn to food for relief from pain.

4. Take action to address any health issues (type II diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers) that may have been caused by a history of compulsive overeating.

5. Get support by joining a support group (such as Overeaters Anonymous.) You may find a support group's weekly meetings helpful in maintaining healthy attitudes towards food once you start dealing with your compulsion.

Lastly, never give up hope. A normal life is possible for compulsive overeaters through a process of lifestyle change, and the help of others.

Smiles…Gigi

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