There May Be A Link Between Impulsivity And Binge Eating

New findings published in the Journal of Eating Disorders links impulsivity to binge eating.

Researchers at Michigan state University discovered that those who are more impulsive are also more likely to binge eat when dealing with negative emotions.

Researchers defined binge eating as the uncontrollable consumption of a large amount of food in a short period of time.

"It's human nature to want to turn to something for comfort after a bad day, but what our research found is that the tendency to act rashly when faced with negative emotions is a personality trait that can lead to binge eating," Kelly Klump, senior author of the study, said in a statement.

During the study, researchers interviewed over 600 female twins. 14 percent dealt with binge eating, overeating (consumption of a large amount of food without a loss of control) or loss of control over eating (difficulty controlling one's consumption of even a small amount of food). They determined that people with these eating problems generally had higher levels of 'negative urgency,' or a tendency to act impulsively when experiencing negative emotions, than those who did not have pathological eating.

Researchers also found that "both overeating and feeling out of control when eating small or normal amounts of food were related to rash action when experiencing negative emotions," Sarah Racine, lead author of the study, concluded.

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