Treatment

Most people get better from binge eating disorder with treatment and support.

Guided self-help

You'll probably be offered a guided self-help programme as a first step in treating binge eating disorder. This often involves working through a self-help book or self-help guide online, combined with sessions with a healthcare professional, such as a therapist.

Joining a self-help support group, like one of the Beat online support groups for people with binge eating disorder, may also be helpful.

If self-help treatment alone is not enough or has not helped you after 4 weeks, you may also be offered cognitive behavioural therapy or medicine.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

If you're offered CBT, it will usually be in group sessions with other people, but it may also be offered as 1-to-1 sessions with a therapist.

You should be offered about 20 sessions across 20 weeks, each one lasting about 90 minutes for a group session.

CBT involves talking to a therapist, who will help you explore patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that could be contributing to your eating disorder.

They will help you:

plan out the meals and snacks you should have during the day, to help you adopt regular eating habits
work out what is triggering your binge eating
change and manage negative feelings about your body
stick to your new eating habits so you do not relapse into binge eating

You should not try to diet while you're having treatment because this can make it more difficult to stop binge eating.

Medicine

Antidepressants should not be offered as the only treatment for binge eating disorder. But you may be offered an antidepressant in combination with therapy or self-help treatment to help you manage other conditions, such as:

anxiety or depression
social phobia
obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)

Antidepressants are rarely prescribed for children or young people under 18.

Find out more about antidepressants

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