For many people eating creates comfort and pleasure. Sometimes  they eat much more than they normally do on special occasions. But people with binge eating disorder don’t know how to control their voracious appetite and repeatedly attempt to lose weight by dieting. They lose all control over how much they're eating. They just can't stop. Due to the repeated failures to control their food intake, they may be also give up all dieting efforts, thus becoming depressed and anxious. They eat unusually large amounts of food very quickly and feel completely out of control as they do it. They binge not just from time to time but fairly regularly. These behavior becomes the pattern of eating and can alternate with dieting.

  Many individuals with binge eating disorder are fat (more than 20 percent above a healthy body weight) but normal-weight people also can be affected. Many children and teens are affected by the disorder because the condition has only recently been recognized and many people may be too embarrassed to seek help for it. Adults in treatment often say their problems started in childhood or adolescence.
    Binge eating disorder is a newly recognized condition that probably affects millions of Americans. The statistic shows that 2% of adult Americans - roughly 1 million to 2 million people - have the disorder. Binge eating disorder is slightly more common in women, with three women affected for every two men. Among mildly obese people in self-help or commercial weight loss programs, 10 to 15 percent have binge eating disorder. The disorder affects blacks as often as whites; its frequency in other ethnic groups is not yet known. Doctors are still debating the best ways to determine if someone has binge eating disorder or not.