Pregnancy may open a window of vulnerability for developing binge eating disorder, especially for women from lower socio-economic situations, say researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Their study, conducted with co-researchers from Norway, involved 100,000 pregnant Norwegian women and showed an unexpected increase in binge eating disorder that began during pregnancy. The findings, published in Psychological Medicine, suggest that binge eating differs from the normal cravings that pregnant women often report. People with binge eating disorder regularly consume large amounts of food in a set period of time and report feeling out-of-control during the episode. The disorder differs from bulimia nervosa in that sufferers don't engage in purging, such as using vomiting or laxatives.
As well as contributing to weight gain and obesity, binge eating disorder is also associated with health problems such as anxiety and depression, insomnia, and chronic pain. In the study, for women who already had the disorder, continuation of symptoms during pregnancy was more common than remission. Lower education and lower minimum combined income was associated with new onset cases of binge eating disorders.
The researchers will follow the impact of eating disorders, especially binge eating, on the women and their children over time. They want to find out, for instance, if fluctuating nutrients during gestation have impact on children's birth weight, development and childhood and adolescent eating and weight patterns.
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Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
