ORONO – Stephanie LaMattina wanted to be a pediatrician. As an undergraduate at Northeastern University in Boston, she enrolled in the pre-med program and worked as an intern at the Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury. It didn’t turn out the way she expected.

“I found that I wasn’t that good at dealing with people in pain and the sight of blood,” said the University of Maine graduate student. But what she also saw was the effect that psychological stress could have on disease symptoms.

“Stress can make lots of problems worse,” she said. “You can be biologically vulnerable to a health problem, but with stress, symptoms tend to show up more.”

That experience was enough to convince the Boston native to shift her studies to psychology. At first, she focused on eating disorders in male college athletes. She also did an honors thesis on how self-esteem affects feelings of jealousy. Today, as a University of Maine Provost Fellow and doctoral candidate, she is exploring the role of stress in eating disorders.

LaMattina is part of a team of students working with Sandy Sigmon, UMaine professor and director of clinical training in the department of psychology, on a study of binge eating. LaMattina will focus on the role of stress in stimulating and sustaining binge eating behavior.

Other members of the team include Jennifer Pells, a doctoral student from Burlington, Vt., and two students starting in the fall, Barbara Hermann of Portland and Janell Schartel of Laureldale, Pa.

Feelings of distress and loss of self-control are hallmarks of anxiety disorders, said Sigmon. And those emotions may reinforce a consumption pattern that contributes to obesity and a negative self-image.

Sigmon specializes in anxiety disorders such as panic disorder and seasonal affective disorder.

LaMattina hopes that what she discovers will lead to better psychological treatments for binge eaters, including prevention of the behavior before it starts. She and other students are interviewing volunteers who have been clinically diagnosed with binge eating disorder. Key to their work is determining how people respond to stressful situations and understanding how episodes of binge eating affect emotions.

They also are focusing on cognitive treatments such as keeping diaries and modifying eating patterns.

“We encourage individuals to eat smaller amounts of food six times a day, every two to three hours or so,” said LaMattina. “A regular pattern can help people avoid becoming really hungry and then eating a lot.”

“Effective treatment helps people to exert control over their life,” added Sigmon. “People often don’t think they can control their weight. Weight-loss treatment programs don’t work because they don’t deal with the emotional factors behind the behavior. Binge eaters tend to say, ‘I’m not going to eat today.’ But we know that doesn’t work. By 6 p.m., they’re really hungry.”

Both men and women are susceptible to binge eating. Although the American Psychological Association does not formally recognize the disorder, it has issued guidelines to help psychologists recognize it. Eating a large amount of food in a short amount of time qualifies as binge eating behavior. To date, most studies have focused on the relationship between binge eating and obesity.

LaMattina was attracted to UMaine because of the university’s strong clinical research program and focus on stress and anxiety. “This program is a perfect fit for me,” she said.