Does anyone else here remember the first time they binge ate? Or purged? Or started to avoid eating? Or whatever food control issue you have?

I can remember mine. I have a problem with binge eating. I was 10 years old, and a chubby child -- not obese, but definitely overweight. This was before my mom started dragging me to Weight Watcher meetings with her.

Anyway, I was 10, and a Girl Scout, and we were selling cookies. Well, I saved my allowance and bought a whole box of thin mint cookies, just for me. I know I gorged on them, not sure the timeframe I ate them in, but when I was done I had a problem -- what to do with the box? I couldn't put it in the trash can, because my mom did the trash and she'd see.

So I flattened the box out, and hid it behind a poster in my room that I taped up against my wall. It was a few weeks later that the weight of the box caused the poster to slip down, and my mom was the one who found it, with the flattened box on the floor. I remember watching Superman in the living room with my dad when she came out with it, yelling about how no wonder I was so fat, etc., etc.

Anyway, that's my first memory of binge eating, and hiding the evidence. I always kind of wondered if there might've been a better way for my mom to handle it, I just remember it being a huge, huge issue in my life, and for a long time I couldn't watch any Superman movies or think about Superman. Strange but true.

Anyone else?

I don't remember much of my childhood at all so I can't say when it all started. My mom does tell me that she found out I was eating two lunches at school and also she would feed me at home but I'd go to school and eat breakfast as well.

I do have one experience that I didn't really understand until I accepted that I have been an overeater/binger. I broke a glass of marshmallow cream or whatever it is. I cleaned it up and threw it away. My memory is my mom being upset at me and not believing that I didn't eat it. I'm pretty sure I didn't because I don't care for marshmallows but my mom never believed me and she was so mad at me. I guess she was used to me eating a lot of food I wasn't supposed to.

I don't remember much of my childhood either. Probably a good thing. Anyway, while looking over some class pictures a bunch of years ago, I noticed that I was a skinny, skinny pickle until I got to my 5th grade picture, and there I was all blown up and distored - yup that's when I started packing on the pounds. And seeing that picture also jogged my memory of something I had kept surpressed - a traumatic experience. Those pictures were very eye opening. Somehow I was able to control my overweightness (is that a word) and only be about 20 lbs overweight or so.... until I was married.

I also have this vague kind of a memory of going on a class trip and we had to order our lunch and there was a choice of a few different snacks and I remember ordering 2 snacks. Weird what we remember...... and what we don't.

I don't think I had any binge issues as a child, but what I did have was a "love" for food. Even now I would say that many (a lot!) of my fondest memories from being a kid are of savoring food and the taste of food. As for later, my experience is this...

After being the "fat" kid for so long as a young child, I reached junior high school and turned into "the swan." Lost tons of weight, got in shape due to gym class and my family really being into health at that point. We used to go walking everyday for 2 or 3 miles. Same in high school, but then I got used to being "pretty" and "thin" and started starving myself. THAT'S when my binging began. I wouldn't eat in front of people, but boy, oh boy, behind closed doors! I give that time period in my life a whole lot of credit for me being where I am now.

I don't binge anymore, thank God. Do I eat too large of portion sizes at times? Yes. But I don't binge.

For the last two years or so I have learned so much about what it takes to be healthy. Just wish I could have known more about it growing up. Now I'm totally dedicated to DOING IT.

I don't remember a specific first time, but I do remember instances that all happened around the same time.. as an elementary-aged child.

I would go over my friend's house and eat dinner with them. Then when my mother picked me up, she would ask me if I had had dinner with them. I would say yes, but I only ate a little and I was still hungry. It was a lie, but it allowed me to eat more.

When I came home from school, I would fix myself a frozen meal or a packet of mashed potatoes as a "snack".

At my favorite restaraunt, I used to have a meal with an unlimited soup and salad bar. I would gorge myself on the soup and salad (I think my record was 14 cups of soup), then eat the dinner, then desert. It wasn't until I was 12 or 13 that my mother finally put her foot down and told me I was allowed 2 cups of soup and 1 plate of salad along with my meal.

I guess I fit in here. Unfortunately my mother has always had issues with food, which she so graciously passed on to her three daughters. I always gorged on food, but remember I would run into the house after school around 11 years old, because I would be alone for about an hour. I could thaw an apple pie out of the freezer in the microwave just enough to be able to cut it and would eat the whole thing before anyone could come home. Unfortunately I also remember the brown garbage can it would end up in after that I was always washing. After I moved out of my parent's house and the pressure I lost a lot of weight. Unfortunately apparently I can't live with anyone, because as soon as my husband and I moved in together, I just gained the 100 lbs back. Luckily, I do not "gorge" like I used to, even on a bad day I think I'm eating 1/2 of what I was doing before. I actually will notice I feel like crap now! Maybe age, common sense or something finally kicked in!!! Most importantly, I see myself in my 7 year old son and that he has a predisposition to follow in my foot steps -- which I won't allow to happen! I have to do this for myself, but also to stop history from repeating itself!!! I can still remember how it made me feel when my mother would go off about what was eaten and even blame us when dad asked so he wouldn't get mad at her. I want food to be a nonissue for my kids, a source of nutrition, not comfort.

Ramble, ramble, ramble -- sorry! I guess I find this website to be my daily dose of therapy!!

I was just discussing this with a friend of mind. I was 9. I used to come home from school for about 20 minutes alone. I remember being on the bus and thinking what i thought I could eat before my mother got home. I used to hid dishes and empty boxes under my bed. I remember cleaning my room once (I was about 11) and flling an entire trash bad with empty containers and boxes. It is scary how early it started. It wasnt my parents either. They are both heavy but "okay" with it. I was allowed any food I wanted any time I wanted without any judgment. My parents always tried to tell me how beautiful I was....I guess it isn't always our parents that screw with our heads.

Mari

I dont remember thinking of it so much as binging. I just remember once thinking that it wasnt normal that a kid my age and size would eat an entire hoagie AND an entire can of soup in one sitting and that I was so full it hurt but I finished both anyway.

I don't remember specifics, but I do remember very much when it started to happen. I was very curvy very young... and I got to a point where abuse and constantly being hit on and getting the wrong type of attention just started getting to me. I really think there was a part of me that just was saying - if you're fat they will leave you alone... Not that I blame men, even the abusive one, for my gaining so much weight. I just think they... inspired me to. :}

I dont remember the EXACT first time, but I remember instances in elementary school eating ice cream in the bathroom, hiding food under my bed, sneaking into the kitchen at night.....

WOW, I wonder what in my 10-11 year old mind REALLY triggered that behavior? I was always a chunky kid and my parents were always negative about it "you shouldn't eat that or you'll be fat".....oh hey, I suppose that was a trigger.....

Boy do I remember! I discovered this after a year of therapy..haha.

I didn't binge until I was in college, but I had always been a chubby child. I didn't eat a whole lot, I was just really lazy and never got any exercise. So I remember my parents, when I was probably 9 or 10, buying a treadmill and making me walk on it for 15 minutes each night. I very clearly remember them telling me "you will not be happy if you're fat, especially in high school."

So I basically had it in my head that I would not be happy if I was fat. Interestingly, I never really thought about being overweight until I went to college. I was maybe only 25 lbs overweight (I would LOVE to be 25 lbs overweight now!).

The binging didn't start until after I began purging. Long story short, when I was 20, I went through a bad breakup, and horrible anxiety issues. I lost about 10 lbs from just being so anxious and depressed. Because I was so anxious, my stomach always felt sick, and if I ate food and became anxious, I would unintentionally (seriously) end up throwing it up. Well, lo and behold, I started losing all this weight. Then I figured out, I could still binge (i.e. eat half a pizza, ice cream, two sodas and whatever else), throw it all back up, and still not gain anything, and usually, lose weight!

I just posted this on another thread, but this "plan" was great until I realized I was bulimic. I was so obsessed with my weight. I weighed several times daily. In public I was normal, but my parents started to notice how I could eat all that food and still lose weight. The "plan" also worked until I developed gallstones from the rapid weight loss, cavities, heart palpatations, migraines...you name it.

Oh yeah, and the best part... my metabolism is dead. Kaput. I put on that 40 lbs I lost, plus 30 lbs more. I am kicking myself now, although happy that I took the necessary steps to receover (i.e. therapy, supportive family, etc) from my eating disorder.

I guess I was just an oddity in my family because nobody else is overweight or obese, or has any food control issues.

I remember sneaking to the cupboard and taking bags of chips back to my bedroom. We would buy one of those massive packs once a week that had about 5 different varieties and 5 of each flavour. Over a few days, I would eat all the salt and vinegar ones and then nothing until the next big pack was bought. Things escalated when I started getting my own pocket money and my first paper round, the earnings of which I spent mostly on food.

So I slowly stacked on the kilos because I would eat fast food 4 times a week and a massive 250g bag of chips every day. For abour 5 years. It's incredible but nobody in my family, to this day, has any idea of what an absolute addict I was. Nobody knows I used to binge like that, and occasionally purge. When you think about it, it's outrageous how devious and sly I would have had to have been to hide it for so long as a young teenager!

As an 18 year old who is now dealing with the consequences of this, I wish I could go back to that girl who I was and set her on the right track... but you can't have your druthers.

I do remember when I first purged though, I think I was in college, I was working at wendy's and went on a major binge on my break. I had been doing a really stupid 800 calorie diet all summer and one evening I hit the super salad bar (this was back when they had tacos, pasta, everything on their huge salad bar). I ended up purgeing at the end of my break.

Fortunately for me purging almost always led to uncontrollable emesis for about 24 hours after and that is what kept me from doing it after a few experiences. For me the urge to purge was almost as much to get rid of the bloaty stuffed ill feeling of the binge, so knowing I would feel like **** for so long after convinced me. But I have to occasionally stop my self by remembering.

Ironically bad morning sickness with my dd may have cured that forever.

I was always the tall/skinny/flat kid when I was younger -- I remember putting rubberbands around my knees to keep my socks up, and I went through this phase of absolutely adoring suspenders.

The first time I remember specifically overeating is when I was 12. My family was staying at a resort center while my dad had a business conference, and the dining room was absolutely huge. One night they had spaghetti, and I went back for a heaping seconds. My family was all "WOW, Z actually finished a whole plate, AND wants seconds!" -- which was unheard of for me. I don't remember what I thought at the time, but a year or two later I realized that that meal was the beginning of a different relationship with food. In college, with the curse of dining halls, I discovered the wonders of "hey, eat as much as you can of what you want, then purge after - it all evens out". I never thought of it as an ED (who has an ED when they're always overweight?!), just a way of keeping the balance.

But now I'm fighting pretty damn hard against a decade of old habits, and it makes me laugh to think I'd been convincing myself there was nothing 'disorderly' about it.

You ladies have no idea how important it is for me to hear these stories. I swear sometimes it feels like I'm the only one. I think my food binges started so early I can't even remember that far back. My parents got divorced when I was 5. They fought for several years before that. In my pictures as a kid I was "normal" until about age 4 and then I just ballooned. Now I can literally think of hundred upon hundreds of times I binged in my childhood (the parts I do remember). I lived in one of those households where we couldn't keep sweets around. We all had a problem with them. If my mom baked a pan of brownies we literally ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and snack and dessert) until they were gone. We had no ability to control ourselves. All of us...we were all that way. I'm fighting like mad right now to make sure that this is not the pattern that my daughter learns at the tender age of 3. I'm struggling and am trying *again* to lose weight and correct these behaviors before it's too late!