08/23/2021
Have you heard of night eating disorder?
First identified in the 1950s, night eating disorder is only recently coming to the forefront of eating disorder and treatment and research. Diagnostically, night eating disorder is categorized under OSFED, or Other specified feeding or eating disorder.
Individuals with night eating disorder experience recurrent episodes of eating late at night, or waking up in the night to eat. Individuals may feel a lack of control during the eating, but do remember it in the morning. The night eating causes significant distress or impairment in functioning for the person.
People with night eating disorder also typically experience problems with falling and staying asleep in general and they are more likely to experience depression. Night eating disorder differs from binge eating disorder in that it exclusively shows up with late night eating, and does not have to involve eating an excessively large amount of food.
