East

Binge Eating Disorder has only relatively recently been recognised – yet it is more common that anorexia.

According to the Norfolk based national eating disorders charity, Beat, more needs to be done to understand this complex condition.

Doctors often don't diagnose it and so sufferers go without treatment.

Impossible to stop

Mark Crook was diagnosed a year ago. He is 30 and weighs 32 stone, and finds it impossible to stop eating.

Obesity - on the increase.

"Food rules my life. I would more than happily never eat again. If it wasn't for food, I would be fit and healthy," he says.

He was diagnosed with Binge Eating Disorder a year ago.

"I don't consider that I eat a lot. But when I binge, I don't think of it as a meal - my brain switches off.

"Food rules my life. I would very happily never eat again."

Mark has started his own website and forum, which offers mutual help and support for other people who over eat.

Action needed

Susan Ringwood, Chief Executive of Beat, says more needs to be done.

"People can recover if they get the right help quickly enough. At the moment that's not happening for most people.

Lee Richardson - tackling overeating.

"We are calling on the medical profession to understand this and improved the services they provide."  

Thirty-year-old Lee Richardson from Hadleigh in Suffolk also weighs 32 stone, but no one has ever got to the bottom of why he is so over weight.

"My main problem is when I start to eat, it's stopping that is the biggest problem. I can't stop" he says. 

"The doctor gave me some free slimming world vouchers and then when they ran out, it was more or less 'you're old enough to do it yourself'."   

Daily struggle

Julia Buckroyd, Emeritus Professor from the University of Hertfordshire, has been studying over eating for 10 years and believes understanding the emotional dimension, not diets, is the key. 

Julia Buckroyd - studying root causes.

"Not everyone who over eats has a disorder. Over eating has become part of our society." 

"We're not talking about that. What we're talking about here are people who have a daily struggle with food."

According to Professor Buckroyd, 80% of diets don't work.

She has conducted trials using group therapy with women who over eat. The results are promising.

Groups are about to launch initially in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire,  Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire in mid February 2009.