Binge eating antecedents in normal-weight nonpurging females: is there consistency?

We examined the situational antecedents of binge eating episodes and tested for consistency in the antecedents. We evaluated the antecedents of two successive binges via structured interviews with 50 normal-weight nonpurging females who regularly binge. Cluster analysis yielded two categories of binge-promoting situations: solitary negative affect situations and social eating situations. When this empirically derived classification of binge situations was used, the two successively occurring binges did not systematically fall into the same cluster. Consistency on other measures was also modest. Implications of these findings for conceptual models of binge eating and treatment, including the prospect of individually tailored interventions, are discussed.