Laboratory studies of eating behavior in women with bulimia.

This report describes a standard procedure for studying the disordered eating behavior of bulimic patients in a laboratory setting. Test meals were given to eight normal weight women with bulimia under four different conditions on non-consecutive days. On day 1 they were asked to consume as much as they "would normally eat" by means of a straw from an opaque container holding 1500 g of a palatable liquid food. An eating monitor recorded the pattern of consumption. Five patients showed abnormalities of either excessive eating or acceleration of the rate of eating. On the second and third days they were given standardized amounts of an array of foods. They were instructed to eat normally on one of these days and to eat as much as they could on the other, in counterbalanced order. All patients ate to excess when they were asked, over a 28 to 90 min period, and consumed a mean of 4477 kcal (range 2083-8499 kcal) with a macronutrient composition similar to that of the typical American diet. They all vomited afterwards. On the day they were asked to eat normally, five patients overate and vomited, two ate very little, and one refused to participate. On the fourth day patients were asked to eat as much as they could of a single item, ice cream. Six patients consumed a mean of 1545 kcal (range 741-2919 kcal); one patient ate only 85 kcal; and one patient refused to participate. There were large and significant correlations among the sizes of the various meals consumed in excess.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)