Women own up to guilt over eating habits

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jan/20/binge-eating-food-women

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Millions of British women have eating binges, lie about how much they weigh and have a negative relationship with food, according to a survey. The study of 2,000 women also found that eating in secret is commonplace, with many refusing to tell family and friends the truth about how much they consume. Researchers said boredom, stress and feeling depressed were the biggest triggers causing women to eat more.

Three-quarters of UK women – 24 million – say they often feel guilty about how much they eat. Women typically think about food 12 times a day and those under 25 have it on their minds twice as much as those over 55, the poll found. Six out of 10 told researchers they had lied about how much food they ate, almost half (43.74%) said they snacked in secret and more than a quarter (27.68%) confessed to binge eating – this rises to more than a third (36.72%) of those under 25.

Linda O'Byrne, chief nutritionist for New Atkins Nutritional, which organised the survey, said: "These are very worrying figures that reveal many women are ill at ease with food. Whether it is bingeing, lying about how much you weigh or eating in secret, you must do your best to stamp it out. On a diet or not, food should never be the enemy. It should be a positive and not a negative influence in your life."

Pollsters found that more women in Southampton confess to binge eating (38.46%) than any other UK city, followed by Brighton (36.36%) and Cambridge (34.38%).

Almost two-thirds (63.64%) of females in Sheffield admit they are secret eaters, followed by 55% of those in Portsmouth, and half of women in Manchester. Meanwhile, Glasgow women were found to be the most dishonest in the UK when it came to weight, with more than half (51.02%) lying about how much they weighed.