Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc.) describes the Night Eating Syndrome as follows:

* The person has little or no appetite for breakfast. Delays first meal for several hours after waking up. Is not hungry or is upset about how much was eaten the night before. * Eats more food after dinner than during that meal. * Eats more than half of daily food intake after dinner but before breakfast. * This pattern has persisted for at least two months. * Person feels tense, anxious, upset, or guilty while eating. * Person may be moody at night: tense, anxious, nervous, depressed, etc. * Has trouble falling asleep or staying asleep.
*Wakes frequently and then often eats. * Foods ingested are often carbohydrates: sugary and starch. * Behavior is not like binge eating which is done in relatively short episodes. Night-eating syndrome involves continual eating throughout evening hours. * This eating produces guilt and shame, not enjoyment. ANRED reports that only 1-2% of average weight adults have this problem, but that more than 25% of people who are overweight by 100 or more pounds, practice night eating.

Night Eating Syndrome, also referred to as NES, is not yet recognized as an eating disorder, but is receiving more interest in recent years.

A number of studies have been published recently, exploring the unusual behavior of night eating. A similar behavior, sleep eating, has also been researched recently.

At the MedLine Plus site, I found an interesting article titled "Night Eating Syndrome Due to Stress, Not Hunger." Reviewing findings of a recent study, the article hypothesizes (sp?) that stress related hormone patterns, may play a big part in night eating. The article reports "In general, these findings indicate that "the relationship between the adrenal gland (which releases cortisol), the hypothalamus, where the appetite center is and the pituitary, where a lot of hormones are produced, is out of control," Birketvedt said. "No wonder they (night eaters) eat late at night and wake up during the night.""

Ivillage.com's "healthy eating expert", Lynn Grieger address night eating in a less clinical manner. "Eating late at night is a common habit. Most of the time, we eat out of stress or to fill emotional needs, not hunger." Grieger goes on to outline a checklist which can be used to determine your true reasons for night eating. (Your answers may surprise you.)

I discovered an interesting article on the subject in the stress topic at About.com. The article, Night Eating Syndrome - a Result of Stress? like that in Medline Plus, seems to conclude that hormones are often to blame for night eating.

Night Eating Disorder is focused on as a sleep disorder, not an necessarily an eating disorder. (It reads to me, like a mutated disorder of both types). At Neuronic.com it's explained that "Whilst there is a debate whether night eating disorders are eating disorders or sleep disorders it has become clear that investigating the sleep characteristics is worthwhile."
There are many articles on to be found on the web, which touch on this subject. I found that most of them repeat the same information and refer to the same hormone study. To read for yourself, just pop night eating into any search engine.

A similar behavior is commonly called Nocturnal Sleep-Related Eating Disorder . NEDIC.CA reports that "Nocturnal sleep-related eating disorder is thought to be a sleep disorder, not an eating disorder. The episodes occur when the person is somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, and may binge or consume strange combinations of food or non-food items. When awake, the person has little or no memory of the episodes."

SWDCA.ORG explains Nocturnal Sleep-Related Eating Disorder this way: "Nocturnal sleep-related eating disorder is a relatively unknown condition that is just now being investigated. SWDC will provide helpful resource links here as they are found. In spite of its name, NS-RED is not, strictly speaking, an eating disorder. It is thought to be a type of sleep disorder in which people eat while seeming to be sound asleep. They may eat in bed or roam through the house and prowl the kitchen. These people are not conscious during episodes of NS-RED. They are not aware they are eating. They have fragmentary or no memories of having done so when then wake. Episodes probably occur in a state somewhere between wakefulness and sleep."

wow. I didn't realize night eating could be such an extensive thing!
Thank you for posting all of these articles, they are very
eye opening.

Amazing how eating disorders are varied, and sneak up on one.

very very interesting article Thanks

So do you think other than bad eating habits in response to stress one can gain weight from the cortisol hormone being released through the body during stress? I have read at some sites that you can gain weight but dont know how reliable they are.

99% of the time, weight is gained by taking in more calories than what the body burns for fuel. The 1% that is exception is grave medical conditions which this is not. People would like to blame a condition yet, the article merely states

. This article further claims a condition is so extreme that one does not even realize they are eating like sleep walking. I would say that particular example is a medical cause.