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Background: Eating disorders pose a serious challenge to health services due to psychosocial and medical problems. Binge eating is characterized as a pattern of overeating episodes followed by feelings of loss of control and culpability, and it attempts to restrict eating to lose weight. Among eating disorders, binge has the highest prevalence, especially among females. This study aims to examine the prevalence of binge eting disorder and its relationship with selected variables (i.e. socio-demographics, nutritional status and dietary habits). Methods: The cross-sectional survey design was used to answer the research questions. All the students who consented to join the study were assessed in terms of nutritional status, dietary habits and medical profile. The screening for presence of binge symptoms was done using BEDS-7. Only 122 students, from three different faculties, aged from 18-23 years old (M= 19.64± 1.17), were included in the final analysis. Results: The presence of binge symptoms had a record of 58.2% among the participants. There was a relationship between binge symptoms presence and these variables: eating between meals, number of total meals, and academic achievement, (p<0.05). Binge was not associated with obesity or overweight. More studies are needed to further examine other risk factors and correlations. Educational programs are also recommended to increase the undergraduate students’ awareness on eating disorders to promote healthy eating styles among them and the entire community as well
Keywords: binge eating disorder, prevalence, risk factors, university students