Robin Moore Discusses Her Binge Eating Disorder
Binging, Compulsive Overeating, Robin's Early Years
Nov 3, 2009
Today Robin Moore is a happy woman, busy with her new career in life, coaching women - helping them to realize their full potential. This wasn't always so. Robin grappled with binge eating disorder, which still is not as well known as anorexia or bulimia. However, the mental health issues that accompany this eating disorder are just as severe as those accompanying the more recognized eating disorder diagnoses.
Growing Up With Binge Eating Disorder
As a youngster, Robin was teased about her weight and size. School was misery. She found comfort in food and a means to escape some of the emotional pain as well as her low self-esteem/poor body image. Additionally, she was forced to cope with her parent's marital problems and subsequent divorce as best she could.
"My teenage years were a nightmare, and I wanted to be absolutely anywhere but in my own skin living my life. Food was my tormentor, the reason I hated myself and why I couldn't succeed, because of what it made me look like. It was my salvation and a form of release," Robin reflects.
Leaving School
To alleviate some of the social stress and stigma, Robin switched to an all girls' school, only to withdraw before completing it. Robin feared rejection from the boys and attending an all girls' school was a way of not having to face dating and socialization with the opposite sex.
"I didn't navigate those years gracefully. I left school because I simply wouldn't or couldn't engage. I always knew that I would go back, but it was as though I just couldn't be me then."
The Pendulum of Weight Gain and Weight Loss
Like a swinging pendulum, Robin's weight fluctuated. "For years I buried myself behind a wall of fat and shame desperately trying every diet out there. I typically went back and forth continually between 161 pounds to 181 pounds. I'd get to 180 pounds and be hysterical and then go on some crazy 700 or 800 calorie a day diet, do the best I could for a month or so, and get down to 161 pounds or so again."
What Robin has described is typical of binge eating disorder. Some symptoms for binge eating disorder, are:
- "Recurrent episodes of binge eating;
- "Eating an abnormally large amount of food and feeling a lack of control over eating;
- "Distress about binge eating; and,
- "Binge eating isn't associated with inappropriate methods to compensate for overeating, such as self-induced vomiting."
Internal Revulsion
Robin has been able to make peace with herself about herself. This wasn't always the case. "In regards to the emotional toll my weight struggles have had on me, well, let's just say that all the ridicule I've endured throughout the years, and there has been much, it doesn't come close to topping my own self-loathing." Robin further explains, "How could something so basic that's required for survival and also to enjoy have such a hold on me? Simple, all I have to do is lose weight and my life would be perfect, right? How bad must I be if I can't control this? Society tells me I'm a failure, and that I must simply not care about myself. And if I don't care about myself, than why shouldn't I be treated like a second class citizen?"
Eating disorders are complex mental health/emotional issues. A variety of factors impact the development of disordered eating. What Robin has described is not unusual.
Note to the reader: If any information contained in this article causes concern, please see a licensed professional with experience treating eating disorders.
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