Female students with disrupted social networks more likely to binge

Caroline Lee, The Gateway (University of Alberta)

EDMONTON (CUP) — First-year female students living away from home are at a greater risk of demonstrating symptoms of binge eating, according to a study published in the Oct. 2007 issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Erin Barker, a professor of psychology at Beloit College in Wisconsin, completed the study while earning her PhD at the University of Alberta.

Barker found that first-year students who demonstrated an inability to adjust to their new social environment were more susceptible to consuming large amounts of food.

The study found that those students would also consume to the point that they would feel the need to hide their eating habits from others.

“Students who weren’t making new connections for themselves in university were at a greater risk of developing the binge eating disorder,” she said. “If you are moving away from home and are having trouble fitting into your new social world, all these stresses could combine and contribute to these behaviours.”

The study was part of a larger, ongoing study examining whether the transition to university affects healthy behaviours.

At the University of Alberta, 101 young women in their first year of post-secondary education completed an online checklist daily for 14 days to determine whether they demonstrated symptoms of binge eating.

“What we found was that the academic variables weren’t related to binge eating symptoms. In the study, we included three academic variables: GPA for that semester, the participant’s subjective perception of their adjustment academically, and number of class hours. None of those variables were associated with binge eating symptoms,” Barker explained.

Instead, she said the disruption of social networks and an inability to form new connections were the leading factors linked to binge eating. Such occurrences were compounded by a move away from parents’ homes, as well as body dissatisfaction.

Agatha Beschell, a psychologist at the university health centre in Edmonton, explained that binge eating tends to occur to alleviate stress associated

with such a transition, usually after a period of food deprivation.

“It’s a coping mechanism to deal with emotions; if someone is going through a stressful time or experiencing difficult emotions, they may demonstrate “emotional eating” in this context. I think we can say that we’ve all done it. But when it becomes a pattern and gets out of control, then it is identified as binge eating,” Beschell said.

Barker added that emotional disorders such as depression are also associated with frequent binge eating, as individuals begin to associate negative feelings with such behaviour.

Beschell stressed, though, that the purpose of the study wasn’t to diagnose eating disorders, but to identify students with symptoms of binge eating.

In most cases, displaying these symptoms isn’t an indication that an individual will continue to exhibit the behaviour over the long term or that the symptoms will develop into a more serious eating disorder.

Instead, symptoms usually fade as the individual becomes more adjusted to their social environment.

Beschell added that binge eating may appear to be harmless on the surface, but it is also one of the main criterion of bulimia nervosa, a far more serious eating disorder.

“Even without going to the extreme, binge eating alone can cause a lot of distress. It can make a person feel quite guilty and feel even worse about their body image because it can lead to weight gain. In this case, it can actually become a vicious cycle where it may lead to more dieting and, consequently, more binge eating,” Beschell said.