A comparison of women with child-adolescent versus adult onset binge eating: results from the National Women's Study.

Objective: Studies of age of first binge have been conducted in clinical samples of patients with bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED), but few studies have examined age of first binge using nationally representative samples.

Method: We examined age of first binge and its clinical correlates using data generated from the National Women's Study (n = 3,006). Participants who endorsed ever binge eating (n = 707) were divided into two groups: (1) child-adolescent onset (CO)--age of first binge <18 years, and (2) adult onset (AO)--age of first binge ≥18 years.