Eating Disorders, Bariatric Surgery and Patient Differences

On June 7, 2019, Stefania Cella, Landino Fei, Rosa D’Amico, Cristiano Giardiello, Alfredo Allaria and Paolo Cotrufo have published an article entitled “Binge eating disorder and related features in bariatric surgery candidates” in Open Medicine.

A Blog Post by Pablo Markin.

In their article, Stefania Cella and her colleagues have sought to “assess the prevalence of Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and abnormal eating behaviors in bariatric surgery candidates” (407), as compared to patients without BED. This study was, furthermore, aimed at determining “which factors were significantly related to binge eating severity” (407).  The data collection process has involved 63 “preoperative patients (17 males and 46 females)” (407) with “a mean age of 35.17 years” (408) from southern Italy in the years 2017-2018. The measurement of socio-demographic, psychological and health-related variables was based on “the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Eating Disorders Inventory-3, the Binge Eating Scale, and the General Health Questionnaire-28” (407), among others.

According to Cella et al., BED is “a highly prevalent psychological condition in obese bariatric surgery candidates and is associated with various forms of psychopathology” (407). Past studies indicate that those suffering from BED “report more disturbances in eating attitudes […], lower self-esteem and higher psychiatric comorbidity, as well as substance abuse disorders […], when compared to obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery without BED” (407). In the context of weight loss surgery, the presence of BED has not been “significantly associated with demographic variables, such as sex, age, and [Body Mass Index] BMI ” (408).

The findings of this study show that BED and similar eating disorders “are mainly associated with low self-esteem, emotional dysfunction, impulse behaviors, including substance use and self-injury behaviors, self-destructiveness, distress and reticence in social situations” (410). Moreover, this research has indicated that, as opposed to their counterparts patients without BED, patients with BED have “reported lower self-esteem and greater preoccupation with weight, the tendency to think about and to engage in episodes of uncontrollable overeating and more difficulties with emotion regulation, including being able to clearly identify emotional states” (412).

By Pablo Markin

Featured Image Credits: NEDA Week with Mika Brezezinski, February 25, 2014 | © Courtesy of GW Public Health/Flickr.