It was not until 1959 that one of the early researchers on obesity, psychiatrist Albert J. Stunkard, first described binge eating as a syndrome where “large amounts of food are consumed in an orgiastic manner at irregular intervals.”
It was not until 1959 that one of the early researchers on obesity, psychiatrist Albert J. Stunkard, first described binge eating as a syndrome where “large amounts of food are consumed in an orgiastic manner at irregular intervals.” It would take until 2013, though, with the publication of our Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)-5, that binge-eating disorder became an established psychiatric diagnosis.
How is binge-eating disorder diagnosed now? The diagnostic criteria are somewhat arbitrary (including how frequently a binge has to occur for the diagnosis to be made), but include: “eating within a discrete period of time (e.g within any two-hour period) an amount of food that is definitely larger than what most people would eat in a similar period of time under similar circumstances”; a “sense of lack of control over eating during the episode (e.g. eating very rapidly and when not hungry; eating well beyond fullness; eating alone because of feeling embarrassed)"; and “marked distress” (e.g. feeling disgusted, depressed) regarding the binge afterward.