I’ve been having a particularly stressful time at work lately, and consequently, can barely remember the last time I did not experience hunger as an emotion. Luckily, it’s never been easier to conceal compulsive eating habits than with a room full of people who hate their jobs. Mountains of special offer Cadbury’s must pour into bored office worker’s mouths every day; shall-I-shan’t-I Mr Kipling offerings follow round after round of sorry-you’re-leaving tray bakes.However, my eating habits at work seem to have followed me home. It’s when I am alone in a room with a ticking clock and a wheel of brie that things really get out of hand. Almost as soon as I have mentally pictured the thing I want to eat, I’ve eaten it. It’s a feeling less like luxurious enjoyment than a wild-eyed consumption followed pretty much instantaneously by niggling disgust. If you’ve ever got yourself off to really dutty porn and experienced the fallout or been so out of control drunk you offended all your mates, well, it’s a bit like that.But while my friend might be American, this is not an issue confined by culture. Dr. Kathryn Kimmond , a psychologist specialising in health and psychology of the body and self harm thinks that, in general, we do have a poor cultural affinity with food in Britain. “Our relationship with food is changing: food is also everywhere, and it’s tempting. Portions are huge, food is fast, it’s all ‘on the go’ and we don’t have to work very hard to get hold of it.”If one of the symptoms of binge eating is to medicate bad feelings, then the additionally emotive marketing of food at women probably isn’t helping. Yoghurts are "indulgent", biscuits are "naughty." For Dr Kimmond this is also problematic. I ask her if she thinks this is a female problem. “Women are supposed to like cake, stereotypically,” she says, but for some there’s an anxiety around cake, where many people will like to be seen to enjoy it in public, but have private feelings of shame related to body image.” Under pressure to display functional eating habits for many of us, our eating has been driven underground.