James LaughlinHigh-performance leadership and executive coach. Covering all aspects of life and career.

Here’s why perfectionism makes this worse...

15 Feb 2026 · 0 min

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In this brief interview excerpt, Speaker A explains that binge eating disorder affects roughly one in five people and occurs equally across genders. The discussion highlights that high‑performing individuals often experience binge eating alongside drinking, and that perfectionism is a common personality trait among those with the disorder. The pressure to maintain a perfect diet and high personal standards leads to intense shame and guilt when eating behaviors fall short, underscoring the emotional burden that accompanies the condition.

The stats is that it's about one in five people struggle with binge eating and it's non gender specific so it's not mainly in men or mainly in women. It's the same prevalence across both genders.
How common is this high performing individual also affected by binge eating and drinking?
It's very common, very, very common. And first of all I want to say there's no shame in that. You're only human and one of the most common personality traits in people with binge eating disorder is perfectionism. If we are in the perf body or if we're following the perfect diet and we're so regimented and being perfect and eating clean then we are good. If we just boil it down onto basic terms we are good people, we are achieving. So if you have high expectations for yourself and you are achieving in other areas but not this one, there's a lot of shame there, there's a lot of guilt there.