Binge eating disorder (BED) is a pernicious eating disorder of unknown etiology, which is characterized by (i) frequent consumption of an objectively large amount of food in a discrete time period,(ii) a self-reported loss of control, and (iii) an absence of compensatory behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Treatment outcomes remain modest, yet BED remains among the least studied ED phenotypes, particularly from a neuroimaging lens (Steward et al., 2018), and even more so with regards to pediatric BED.

While BED most commonly onsets in late adolescence, behavioral markers such as loss of control eating can be evident as young as age 6, affording a unique window into assessing early illness-related sequalae. In fact, BED is the most common of all ED phenotype among 9–10 (Rozzell et al., 2019) and 10–11-year-old-children (Murray et al., 2022a), respectively, although it neurobiology remains understudied in pre-adolescent populations. Notably, BED may be marginally more prevalent in boys than girls (Murray et al., 2022a), which contrasts sharply with other ED phenotypes (Murray et al., 2017). This relatively comparable prevalence in pediatric BED affords a unique opportunity to explore possible sex differences in BED which thus far has been understudied.