248 pg, paper, ‘09

Binge eating disorder is less well known than anorexia or bulimia nervosa but is more prevalent. Health professionals estimate that more than five million American women and three million men suffer from BED.

Genetic predisposition, brain chemistry, psychology, and cultural pressures increase a person’s susceptibility to BED, but bingeing is not inevitable. Crave helps readers understand what triggers their food cravings and get control over their responses to those triggers. Bulik shares with readers a set of easy-to-implement “curb the crave” techniques that has empowered patients at the University of North Carolina Eating Disorders Program and elsewhere to triumph over their cravings and establish healthy eating and activity habits.

For twenty years, clinical psychologist Cynthia M. Bulik, PhD, a leading authority on eating disorders, helped track several generations of thousands of people who have binge eating disorder (BED) and found that BED runs in families. In 2000, Bulik was part of a group of researchers who studied eight thousand sets of twins in a Norwegian registry to learn more about how genes contribute to binge eating disorder.

CONTENTS:

Part I: Curb the Crave
1 – One in thirty-five—Binge Eating Disorder is Widespread in America
2 – Weight Loss and Binge Eating
3 – Be Comfortable in Your Own Genes

Part II: Crave-ology
4 – What’s Your Profile?
5 – Eat Breakfast, Hungry or Not!
6 – Stealth Sugars and How to Reset Your “Sweetstat”
7 – Overcome Your Exercise Allergy (Reverse Your Activity Aversion and Move, Move, Move)
8 – Embrace Technology as Therapy
9 – One Size Doesn’t Fit All or Why Not All Treatments Are Equal

Part III
10 – “You Call This Fat?”
11 – What to Do When You Hit the Wall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cynthia M. Bulik, PhD, FAED, is a professor of eating disorders in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, professor of nutrition at the UNC School of Public Health, and director of the UNC Eating Disorders Program. She has been featured or quoted in Vogue, Newsweek, Self, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

REVIEW:

“As both former Secretary of Health and Human Services and someone with a close connection to this subject, I am professionally and personally aware of the importance of providing education about eating difficulties that can have an enormous and widespread impact on individuals and their loved ones. I applaud Dr. Bulik for tackling this complex subject in a practical, sensitive, and supportive way.”
— Tommy G. Thompson