Two Sisters Struggle With Binge Eating

May 9, 2006 — -- Lisa Du Brieuil and Jean Cochran are sisters who share everything -- including a shameful secret.

They suffer from binge eating, a little-known and misunderstood disorder that drives them to consume huge quantities of food in one sitting and to gorge well past their bodies' signal to stop.

"I tried not to eat past full. I tried to just stop at satisfied, but I wasn't able to do it for most of today," said Du Brieuil on her video diary. "I am not going to beat myself up about it. I am going to get to bed early, and I know that over the next couple of days I think I'll probably feel better. I'll get some rest, and my eating will get back to normal."

The sisters both keep video diaries that give a window into a private world of obsession and food. Binge eating is a serious disorder that affects as many as 5 million people in this country.

"I would say, 'Well, I'm just gonna have one cookie,' but something would happen in my brain where I just, once I had one, I would then have another and another," Du Brieuil said.

Eating Until It Hurts

Binge-eating disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that includes major eating jags -- such as a whole plate of brownies or a whole gallon of ice cream -- which occur at least twice a week for months and cause terrible distress for the eater.

The disorder affects about 2 percent to 5 percent of the country's population, and 30 percent or 40 percent of the obese. Binge eating is slightly more common in women than men: Three women for every two men do it.

"It's the pleasure of, of eating these foods that, that were you know, forbidden or labeled as not OK," Cochran said. "I call it a fix. It's like a little piece of happiness."

"It takes until you are so full that it hurts before you can actually pay attention to that signal from your body," Du Brieuil said.

Binge eating has plagued them since childhood.

"I can remember being a little obsessed with food as young as 4 or 5 years old," she said. "I know for sure I started binging in my early teens as I started to have my own spending money so I could buy my own food."