Chris just ate three doughnuts in nine minutes. Was it a binge? If
you're like most people, your answer depends in part on whether Chris is
a guy or a girl.
In a study by psychologist David LaPorte, Ph.D., more than half the 400-plus college students he surveyed felt that eating three
doughnuts qualified as a binge—if the person feasting on them was
female. But guys had to eat six doughnuts before the same number of
students labeled it a binge. Women were particularly likely to show this
sex bias; they gave male snackers far more slack.
In reality, even six doughnuts eaten at a leisurely pace falls
short of what most experts consider a binge, says LaPorte, an associate
professor at Indiana University in Pennsylvania. But the question of what
constitutes a binge isn't just a matter of semantics, he notes in the
journal Appetite.
For one thing, women are more inclined to suffer emotional fallout
from thinking they've binged. "They're likely to feel depressed and
guilty," says LaPorte, "whereas men tend to view eating in physical
terms: rather than expressing negative emotions, they'll say they feel
stuffed or satisfied."
More troubling is the fact that for restrained eaters—people who
consciously limit their intake—the perception of having binged can undo
any remaining resolve, LaPorte says. "That's enough for them to say,
'I've already blown it. I might as well keep on eating.' " So people who
confuse a generous snack with an eating orgy may be setting themselves up
for some real overeating.
Tags:
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emotion,
emotional fallout,
gender,
indiana university,
leisurely pace,
orgy,
overeating,
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resolve,
semantics,
sex bias,
snack
