Binge Eating Disorder Help

Binge eating disorder help comes from two places - from those around the overeater and from the overeater themselves. Knowing how to offer help for binge eating disorder is extremely important to the successful recovery from this troubling problem. Often those who love the binge eater feel pain in knowing that their loved one has binge eating disorder, but this pain can be alleviated through positive action and by offering binge eating support.

How to Offer Binge Eating Disorder Help

Loved ones play an important role in offering binge eating disorder support. It is important to treat the binge eater with respect and care and understand they have a mental illness and need professional overeating help and not disgust, scorn or ridicule.

To offer binge eating disorder help, try these things.¹

• Educate yourself about binge eating and binge eating support.
  Most people have very common but very wrong perceptions about what overeating is, and this lack of knowledge affects the kind of overeating help they can offer. It's critical to learn the facts about binge eating disorder through the overeater's doctor, an eating disorder treatment center, a book or a web site. Overeating help can only be truly offered once binge eating disorder is understood.
• Offer binge eating disorder help without judgment.
  Most binge eaters already judge themselves harshly for their binge eating behavior. They often feel shame and suffer from low self-esteem so the last thing they need is to experience judgment from those offering binge eating support. The binge eater needs a chance to express themselves, the process of recovery and their needs without fearing the overeating help will disappear.
• Encourage positive behaviors.
  While those offering overeating help should never turn into the "food police," loved ones can offer binge eating support by purchasing, or not purchasing, specific foods likely to spark a binge. Good ways to offer binge eating support is to welcome the opening up of the overeater and by celebrating the overeater's achievements in stopping binge eating behavior. (read about the symptoms of binge eating disorder)

Helping Yourself Manage Binge Eating Disorder

Managing an eating disorder is hard work and, in spite of a person's best efforts, overeating help will not always work. The binge eater may slip up from time-to-time, but this is an expected part of treatment. The important thing for the binge eater to remember is that recovery is a process and binge eating support practices can help get them through it.

Binge eating recovery should always include positive, self-nurturing activities such as yoga or meditation. Journaling binge eating thoughts is another way of including overeating help in daily life. These activities are part of the overeater learning to be kind to and love themselves. Additional binge eating disorder recovery and coping techniques for the overeater include:²

• Easing up on themselves - no one is perfect and no one deals with an eating disorder perfectly all the time.
• Identifying possible triggers - understanding the possible triggers of a binge is important so those triggers can be dealt with ahead of time. Binge eating therapy can be used to develop the skills to identify and cope with triggers.
• Looking for positive role models - binge eating disorder help does not come in the form of overthin models and actresses. Looking for role models who can lift self-esteem and provide a healthy body image is best for binge eating support.
• Finding a trusted friend - treatment of binge eating disorder will bring up many issues for the binge eater and they need the right person to open up to; knowing the person will offer binge eating disorder support.
• Finding other binge eaters - it's easier to fight binge eating when overeating help is offered by other overeaters. It gives all the overeaters the opportunity to offer binge eating support and be supported through their recovery as well.

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