Is draining your meals from your abdomen a form of bulimia?

I wonder if the key is that it makes it difficult to have a really good binge followed by a really good purge. Seems like the addictive nature of bulimia depends on that cycle, so I'm not sure this opens up pursuing that sort of excess. If one was really going to binge and purge, would this really be the inspiration or the way to do it?

Maybe if you were already bulimic or prone to bulimia. If you were already bulimic would you reach for this device? Don't know you would. If you were doing this for weight loss, would you start eating more because you were going to draw out 1/3? I dunno. Fascinating question.

Of course, I'm sure the study group was very carefully recruited to avoid that outcome.

I see now you are more on the side of patient curiosity.

I would say that most invasive/surgical even minimally invasive weight loss procedures are only done when someone's obesity is at a certain severity and less invasive, safer, and overall good for you measures like a healthy diet and healthy exercise, as well as some other non-surgical interventions (like certain prescriptions) have failed. And treatment of obesity should of course include psychological evaluation and treatment from the outset.

So I think based on definition of bulimia this would not qualify, and I'm not sure that candidates for this procedure would then develop bulimia from doing this. Bulimia is not just about a desire to control weight, it is an addiction to binging and purging activities. Often there is a relationship to weight and that is how the compulsion begins, with body dysmorphia or a distorted perception or hatred of one's body image, but bulimics come in all shapes and sizes, and engage in purging/binging without any effect on weight. Some bulimics will lose weight, stay the same weight, or even lose weight. Most of them find that they become addicted to the binging and purging, and that weight is no longer the motivating factor if that was indeed how it started.

Treating bulimia requires not only addressing body image but also the compulsion.

So I wouldn't say this would be medicalized bulimia (not doctor would try to sell that in a bottle), but whether or not this would be used by or lead to an eating disorder, is anyone's guess.

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Is draining your meals from your abdomen a form of bulimia?