The Meanings of the Hyperphagic Experience in Binge Eating Disorder and Bulimia Nervosa

Abstract

Eating disorders are often characterized by disturbances in the way and configuration of the act of eating, resulting in an altered way of consuming food, as in the case of hyperphagia. It reveals the experience of a subject who cannot stop eating, which is present in binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. This research seeks to understand the meanings of the hyperphagic experience in binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. Using the critical phenomenological research method, inspired by Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, we conducted eight interviews with patients from an interdisciplinary service for eating disorder treatment. We used the following guiding question: "What is it like for you to eat?" As a result, the anatagonic senses of eating, guilt, loss of control, compensation, the relationship with the body, and the gaze of others were experiences described in both diagnoses and were discussed through a phenomenological lens. We concluded that there is a common dimension of the hyperphagic experience in binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa that is related to an alteration in the way of experiencing one's own body and the impact of the gaze of others on the construction of one's own identity, which converges directly with phenomenological researches conducted in this field.