OBJECTIVE To examine the prevalence and correlates of night eating, the core behavioral symptom of night eating syndrome among adolescents and adults, using two public access survey databases of nationally representative samples. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES Data were extracted for individuals age 13 years or older who completed food diary data for the National Health and Nutrition Examina...

The diagnostic criteria for the Night Eating Syndrome (NES) published in 2010 require the presence of two core criteria: evening hyperphagia and/or nocturnal awakenings for ingestion of food and three of five diagnostic descriptors. One of the descriptors is as follows: "The belief that one must eat in order to fall asleep". In this study we evaluated whether this conviction is significantly mo...

Recently, night eating syndrome (NES) was included into the DSM-5 as an example of "Other Specified Feeding and Eating Disorders." The study provides insight into the population prevalence of NES using a large representative German population sample (n = 2,460) with a wide age range (14-85 years). The prevalence of NES was 1.1% using a cut-off on the Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ) of 25. A po...

OBJECTIVE This study examined the extent to which the night eating syndrome (NES) affects first-degree relatives of NES and control probands. METHOD NES participants and controls were assessed with the Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ), the Night Eating Syndrome History and Inventory (NESHI), 10 day sleep and food records, the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE), the Structured Clinical Intervie...

Night eating syndrome (NES) is a nosographic entity included among the forms not otherwise specified (EDNOS) in eating disorders (ED) of the DSM IV. It is characterized by a reduced food intake during the day, evening hyperphagia, and nocturnal awakenings associated with conscious episodes of compulsive ingestion of food. Frequently, NES patients show significant psychopathology comorbidity wit...

Night eating syndrome (NES) is characterized by caloric intake ≥ 25% of total daily after dinner and/or by two or more weekly nocturnal awakenings accompanied by food ingestion. Causes of NES are not entirely clear and seem to involve a desynchronization between the circadian rhythms of food ingestion and sleep, resulting in a delayed pattern of food intake. Estimates of the prevalence of NES i...

OBJECTIVE To compare the eating and sleep-wake patterns of persons with the night eating syndrome (NES) with those of matched control subjects. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES Forty-six overweight/obese NES subjects (mean age 43.3 +/- 9.8 years; 32 women) and 43 similar controls (mean age 39.0 +/- 11.0 years; 28 women) wore wrist actigraphs for 7 days and completed sleep and food diaries at h...