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."

"I remember even being in grade school knowing that food seemed to be a little more important to me than it was to some of my friends," Cochran said.

A Genetic Condition

Experts say there could be a genetic link to the disorder.

Dr. James Hudson is the director of the biological psychiatry laboratory at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts. His just-published study shows that binge eaters are twice as likely to have a relative with the disorder and 2½ times more likely to be severely obese. They also are prone to depression and anxiety.

"Previously, I think people had assumed that a large amount of, what caused this condition was due to lifestyle or diet or willpower, but new evidence from a study that we've conducted shows that genetic factors may play a large role in contributing to binge eating," Hudson said. "What we really don't know is the chicken and egg question. If you get depressed or anxious, does that make you more likely to binge eat or if you're binge eating, do you become depressed because of that?"

The mother of three, Cochran is determined to help her kids beat the genetic odds of becoming binge eaters. First she has to change her behavior.

"I found that I'm either feeling lousy because I've eaten too much or feeling lousy because I can't eat what I want," Cochran said. "That's been my, that's been my struggle. I'm trying to do exactly what it is that I tell children to do, which is to listen to my body and to remind myself that this food is available all the time. It's, if I want a Hershey bar, it's there and if I want one tomorrow, I can go get another one tomorrow. I don't have to eat three of them right now."

Cochran's No. 1 inspiration has been her sister, who dramatically changed her own behavior about three years ago. Still, as Du Brieuil reveals, she's aware of the traps and temptations at every turn.

"This used to be a really tough part of the supermarket for me to shop in because chocolate, sweets, were things that I wouldn't let myself have," she said while shopping in the supermarket. "This is the ready-to-eat part of the supermarket. Part of being recovered means knowing really well what I want to eat. And this is the part of the store where I can get all sorts of different kinds of food -- a little bit if I want or a lot if I want. So, these days it is sort of my favorite spot."

Ann Pleshette Murphy, "Good Morning America's" parenting contributor and author of "The 7 Stages of Motherhood," said that in order to recover, the binge-eating sufferer needed to accept his or her body and stop dieting.

"The main thing is to make sure that no food is off limits, because that way you don't make food something special," she said. "And once you remove the focus on food, you can focus on the emotional triggers that make you eat. And that's also the way you keep from passing eating disorders on to your kids. It helps them see food as something that you eat when your body is hungry. Hunger shouldn't come from a mental or emotional place."

Happily married, Du Brieuil has started to exercise, lose weight, and feel better about herself.

"What I've come to realize is that if I have a loving attitude and relationship with myself, and I take really good care of myself, that it, that it isn't about the size of your body," she said. "It's really the size of your life."

Parenting contributor Ann Pleshette Murphy reported this story for "Good Morning America."