Friday, October 07, 2016
by Jaime Taylor, D.O., Medical Director, Medical Director, Adolescent Medicine at Beaumont Children's and the Hough Center for Adolescent Health
Imagine a person with an eating disorder.
What comes to mind?
A 5 foot 10 inch, 258-pound college football kicker? Unlikely. But this is the description of the most recent face of this devastating group of illnesses.
This week we were reminded, once again, eating disorders do not discriminate.
In a recent social media post, Penn State kicker Joey Julius (best known to Michigan football fans for his gone-viral tackle of Jourdan Lewis) revealed his recent battle with binge eating disorder.
Binge eating disorder is estimated to affect up to 5% of the general population and is the most common eating disorder in the United States. It is characterized by recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food in a discrete amount of time and a feeling of lack of control (binge eating) as well as associated feelings of guilt or shame afterward. Unique to binge eating disorder, these episodes are not associated with unhealthy behaviors to counter the binge. While some people with binge eating disorder have a normal weight, most are obese.
Julius explains in his Facebook post it was his increasing weight, as well as his anxiety and depression, that prompted his team physicians’ concerns about his well-being. Binge eating disorder, and other eating disorders, are often associated with increased anxiety and depression. These feelings may be a consequence of the illness itself, or they may be separately diagnosed conditions.
Binge eating disorder requires a team treatment approach. It is often a poorly understood diagnosis and is not simply a disease of “overeating.”
If you are concerned that you or someone you know may have an eating disorder, please reach out to your primary care physician for further guidance.
(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)