Hailey Boggess, Utah Valley University
Binge Eating Disorder is the most common eating disorder in the US, and affects 3.5% of adult women and 2% of adult men, and up to 1.6% of teens. Despite being more common than bulimia nervosa, treatment rates are much lower for Binge Eating Disorder. However, binge eating is not exclusive to binge eating disorder and may still occur in individuals who do not meet criteria to be diagnosed. With or without a diagnosis, binge eating poses a devastating threat to health, and multiple factors of self-esteem. In order to study the effects of binge eating on self-esteem and body confidence, we collected data from a convenience sample shared mainly by means of social media of 1008 of participants. In this study we hypothesized that there would be a negative correlation between binge eating and body confidence, meaning that as binge eating increased, comfort with one's body and overall self-esteem would decrease. We also hypothesized that this effect would be much more prominent in women than men. Measures for body comfort and self confidence were compared for both men and women who reported bingeing in the past 1 time, 2 times, 3 times etc., in the past week. Nearly all measures of body confidence and comfort greatly decreased as the number of binges in the past week increased. This was true for both men and women. It is noteworthy that 55.7% of the population reported having binged at least one time in the last week. Much of the available literature on binge eating includes purging, is focused exclusively on women, those who have been formally diagnosed with BED, or only includes adults. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the knowledge base of the effects of binge eating on both men and women- specifically on measures of self-esteem and body comfort in a college age population. This research may provide important information on the relationship between binge eating and self-evaluation.