Paper crinkles in the dark. One, two, three … a pile of sad, empty wrappers grows like something alive. Here’s a secret: I consume soft, chewy, buttery toffees by the dozen. Not everyday, but often enough. Late at night, when the children are asleep and the day is done, I throw caution and dental health to the wind. It is my secret shame, my loss of control.

I realise that it is an uncivilised act, and yet it is oddly comforting. After all, we are told to eat our greens and proteins, to eat the evil, white sweet stuff in small amounts; this is what centuries of civilisation have taught us. And yet, when I think nobody’s watching, I break the social contract. Could an act be more self-destructive and nihilistic at the same time?

But I do know that I am not alone. Chocolate? Meethi saunf? Chips? Ice-cream? I have known someone or the other who has a gorged on either of these goodies until they were sick, guilty the morning after so to speak. We know it is a completely unnecessary intake of food, certainly an unnecessary burden on our thighs, but while we are in the middle of it, neither reason nor logic prevails.

The pleasure is terribly short-lived. Unlike other addictions, say alcohol or cigarettes, it is neither proscribed by religion nor life-threatening. But like other addictions, it simply feels good even though it’s bad for us. Should there be cause for concern?

Yes, because binges can tip over into a disorder. Psychiatrists call it emotional eating, when food is used to feed feelings rather than the body. Our relationship with food is more than physiological, it is also emotional. Food provides comfort, it binds families and communities; it is a way of sharing and nurturing. But when food becomes a means to manage negative feelings and fill an emotional void – that is when the trouble begins.

Unlike other eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia, binge-eaters do not purge themselves of the extra calories. They simply feel guilt and self-loathing. Moreover, nearly as many men as women are binge eaters, unlike the other eating disorders. Binge eating stems not just from a desire to drop a few sizes, loneliness and extremely low self-esteem push people to binge and it is fueled by poor impulse control and the inability to express feelings.

Sara was not overweight, just a little on the heavy side. She always said she would lose the extra fifteen pounds. But she worked in a high-pressure job with irregular hours, so meals were eaten in haste, often greasy, preservative-laden fast food. Sometimes when she would come home late at night, when the rest of her family was asleep, she found she couldn’t sleep and would consume packets of chips in front of the television. “I didn’t know how much I had eaten until I went through three packets,” she says. “By the time I had gone through them, I felt sick and berated myself for my poor will power.”

The tipping point came when she lost her job: she was 29 and single, her family had been pressuring her to marry. When she was fired, she felt as if her world had come crumbled around her. “Suddenly, I became very aware of my loneliness,” recalls Sara. “I felt this paralysing lack of control over my own circumstances.” As the pressure to marry increased, so did her desperation to find another job. But as months passed, Sara found increasing solace in food. Binges were followed by guilt, followed by more binges and it became a vicious cycle. From fifteen pounds, Sara now needed to lose thirty.

The realisation that food was controlling her came as an epiphany. One night, after a monstrous feasting on strawberry shake, a box of nuggets, a cheeseburger and a McFlurry, she saw herself in the rear-view mirror. A car behind her had flashed it lights in the parking and she looked to see who it was. Instead, she saw herself: nearly thirty, single, jobless, an animal with ketchup and milkshake ringed around her mouth. She finally saw a way to control her life – through her weight.

Sara enlisted a friend as her food police, she kept a diary of her food intake, she went jogging every evening and settled for a less stressful and lower paying job. Her family still pointed out potential suitors, but she was able to keep them at bay. Ironically, she found greatest comfort in baking. “I love the precision of baking; the smell of vanilla and chocolate wafting from the oven, the joy of the result. It’s the closest I can come to eating without eating, you know?” Sara eventually lost twenty pounds and quit her job to start a fondant cake-making business.

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