Is Weight Suppression Driving Your Binge Eating?

Weight Suppression and Binge Eating: What You Should Know

If you have bulimia nervosa, did you know that being at a weight that is too low for your body could be a problem? And that it could be driving your binge eating and other behaviors.

Many people are aware that patients with anorexia nervosa need to gain weight in order to recover, but few people are aware that this may also apply to people with bulimia nervosa. This article will review research on the role of previous and current weight on the development and maintenance of bulimia nervosa.

What is Weight Suppression and Why Is It a Problem?

Weight suppression is the difference between one’s highest adult body weight and one’s current weight. It can also be thought of as the amount of weight one has lost from a previous high weight, most commonly in response to dieting.

Human bodies exist in a variety of shapes and sizes. When a person of any size tries to reduce their size to smaller than that intended by their genetics, binge eating may be the body’s natural defense to avoid death by starvation and return the body to a healthier higher weight.

Weight loss decreases metabolism and the amount of energy the body burns. It also seems to increase appetite. The hormone leptin, which sends satiety signals to the brain, is believed to play a role in this process. Studies indicate that individuals with high weight suppression—that is, who have lost a lot of weight—appear to have lower levels of leptin. For these reasons, there is a strong biological predisposition to regain lost weight.

Early Research on Weight Suppression in Bulimia Nervosa

In 1979, Gerald Russell published a seminal paper that first described bulimia nervosa as a variant of anorexia nervosa. In this paper, he noted that weight suppression seemed to play a role in the development of bulimia nervosa. He described these patients as trying to drive their weight below a healthy body weight and, as a result, starting to binge and purge.

In Russell’s initial study of 30 patients with bulimia nervosa, 17 had previously met full criteria for anorexia nervosa, including the low weight. Another 7 patients had also lost weight, but not enough to qualify for anorexia nervosa. Every patient but one had experienced at least some weight loss prior to the onset of bulimia nervosa

Despite this early account, prior to the last 15 years there was not much research on weight suppression. More recently, several researchers have begun to study the impact of current and past weights on eating disorders. Although still in its early stage, this research is helping us to better understand the dangers of weight suppression.

Recent Research on Weight Suppression’s Role in Bulimia Nervosa

Research indicates that prior to the start of their illness, people with bulimia nervosa often start out at a higher-than-average body weight. As the eating disorder progresses, people with bulimia nervosa seem to lose a significant amount of weight. By the time they present for treatment, they are generally within what is usually considered a “healthy” weight range–-but crucially, they tend to be well below their highest adult weights. One study measuring the average degree of weight suppression in people with bulimia found the average amount of weight suppressed was approximately 30 pounds.

These findings indicate that individuals may use bulimic behaviors such as restricting and purging to avoid returning to higher body weights. Not surprisingly, greater weight suppression appears to be associated with more bulimic symptoms and a longer length of illness. Greater weight suppression also predicts weight gain in patients with bulimia nervosa both during and after treatment. The role of weight suppression is important because it illustrates that bulimia nervosa is not merely caused by psychological factors—complex biological factors are also at play.

Patients with weight suppression and bulimia nervosa who are preoccupied with achieving a lower weight appear to be stuck in a bio-behavioral bind. Their weight suppression makes them more prone to weight gain–-but the preoccupation with maintaining a lower weight makes this weight gain highly threatening.

We Need More Research

Researchers do not yet fully understand whether as little as 5 pounds of weight suppression is problematic, or whether only larger amounts of weight suppression are an issue. They also do not know whether the effects of weight suppression are greater if someone was at a higher weight for a longer period of time or whether their weight has been suppressed for a longer time. These are among the answers that researchers studying weight suppression hope to be able to answer.

What Does This Mean for People With Bulimia Nervosa?

Juarascio and colleagues (2017) suggest that some patients who do not recover with a course of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for bulimia nervosa might improve their recovery by gaining weight. It appears that weight gain could reduce the urge to binge and purge. They recommend that clinicians routinely and thoroughly assess for relevant weight history. Juarascio and colleagues also recommend that patients with significant weight suppression and those who gain weight during the initiation of regular eating should receive additional education about the impact of weight suppression on symptoms of bulimia nervosa. They also recommend that clinicians educate patients about the fact that over time, dieting often backfires and leads to weight gain.

Thus, even if you are eating enough and not restricting intake, continuing to binge may indicate that you need to gain weight. Successful treatment may include accepting that genetics contribute to variations in body size and shape. It also may require you to accept that your appropriate weight may be higher than you now prefer. You are not destined to inhabit the same body as someone else.

Self-acceptance can be hard psychological work, but this is one place where we can help support you. Keep in mind that the alternative to acceptance may be a continuation of bingeing and purging.

How Do I Know If My Weight Is Suppressed?

Some questions to consider:

• Is your current weight lower than your highest adult weight?
• Are you preoccupied with thoughts about food?
• Do you experience episodes of eating in which you eat unusually large amounts of food in a short period of time and feel out of control while doing so?
• Do you eat impulsively–when you haven’t planned to–or engage in emotional eating?

If more than one of the above is true, consider seeking help and gaining some weight. Getting to a weight that is biologically determined healthy for you, regardless of where that number is on population norms, is usually the healthiest. We do not yet have enough research to know whether you would need to go back to your highest weight, or whether regaining some of the suppressed weight may be sufficient. You may find that weight gain will relieve some preoccupation with food, reduce some symptoms of bulimia nervosa, and generally improve the quality of your life. You may also discover that the negative consequences of weight gain that you fear do not come true.

When weight is not suppressed you can more fully enjoy eating a variety of foods without obsessive worry and live life more fully. You can go out for dinner and enjoy a drink, indulge in a cupcake for a coworker’s birthday, and travel to a different region and experience the local cuisine all without accompanying anxiety.

This is a good blog post where one woman discussed accepting a higher body weight and living more fully.

Get Counseling for An Eating Disorder in California

We provide eating disorder counseling to people of all sizes anywhere in California online and in-person in our Los Angeles office. Learn more about how our HAES(R)-aligned eating disorder therapy can help. Contact us for more information.

Sources

L Butryn, Meghan, Michael Lowe, Debra Safer, and W Stewart Agras. 2006. Weight Suppression Is a Robust Predictor of Outcome in the Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Bulimia Nervosa. Vol. 115. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.115.1.62.

Gorrell S, Reilly EE, Schaumberg K, Anderson LM, Donahue JM. Weight suppression and its relation to eating disorder and weight outcomes: a narrative review. Eat Disord. 2019 Jan-Feb;27(1):52-81. doi: 10.1080/10640266.2018.1499297. Epub 2018 Jul 24. PMID: 30040543; PMCID: PMC6377342.

Juarascio, Adrienne, Elin L. Lantz, Alexandra Muratore, and Michael Lowe. 2017. “Addressing Weight Suppression to Improve Treatment Outcome for Bulimia Nervosa.” Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, October. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpra.2017.09.004.

Keel, Pamela K., Lindsay P. Bodell, Alissa A. Haedt-Matt, Diana L. Williams, and Jonathan Appelbaum. 2017. “Weight Suppression and Bulimic Syndrome Maintenance: Preliminary Findings for the Mediating Role of Leptin.” The International Journal of Eating Disorders 50 (12):1432–36. https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.22788.

Keel, Pamela K., and Todd F. Heatherton. 2010. “Weight Suppression Predicts Maintenance and Onset of Bulimic Syndromes at 10-Year Follow-Up.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 119 (2):268–75. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019190.

Keel, Pamela K., Lindsay P. Bodell, Alissa A. Haedt-Matt, Diana L. Williams, and Jonathan Appelbaum. 2017. “Weight Suppression and Bulimic Syndrome Maintenance: Preliminary Findings for the Mediating Role of Leptin.” The International Journal of Eating Disorders 50 (12):1432–36. https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.22788.

Keel PK, Bodell LP, Forney KJ, Appelbaum J, Williams D. Examining weight suppression as a transdiagnostic factor influencing illness trajectory in bulimic eating disorders. Physiol Behav. 2019 Sep 1;208:112565. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2019.112565. Epub 2019 May 30. PMID: 31153878; PMCID: PMC6636832.

Russell, G. 1979. “Bulimia Nervosa: An Ominous Variant of Anorexia Nervosa.” Psychological Medicine 9 (3):429–48.