Night eating and stress: Are they related?As the open refrigerator door lights your face in the middle of the night, you may be asking yourself if it’s a healthy routine, this eating at a time when most of your neighbors are sound asleep.Well, healthy or not, at least you have company. About one in every 67 people follow your nocturnal scenario. Among those seeking help with weight reduction, night eaters number 8.9 percent. These are folks whose eating is concentrated in the evening, eating more than half their daily intake of food after 6 p.m., and have trouble sleeping. Laura Pawlow, a University of Southern Mississippi psychology intern with MUSC’s Weight Management Center, is conducting a study on night eating. Pawlow is examining a connection between night eating and stress. She would like to enroll in her study as many night eaters as she can find to determine if brief lessons in relaxation can produce stress reduction among night eaters, and to see if that affects their eating patterns. “I’d like to see what happens to levels of stress, and consequently, on the night eating pattern,” Pawlow said. Studies have shown that night eaters have higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, and the same mechanism which increases cortisol also suppresses melatonin, which plays a role in sleep. Night eaters also suffer from insomnia, and this inability to get to sleep or get back to sleep can set up a trip from the bedroom to the kitchen. With the connection between stress and night eating established, Pawlow will determine if quiet periods of rest and brief instruction in muscle relaxation can lower stress among night eaters, and will observe the effect on eating patterns. “Night eating is not necessarily a health danger, except that many night eaters are also obese. And they’re also losing sleep,” Pawlow said. Night eaters are also often troubled by their inability to control their eating and sleep patterns. She explained that night eating begins with a lack of morning appetite or with a renewed morning commitment to lose weight. So breakfast and maybe lunch is delayed. By mid-afternoon, there’s a snack—probably high-calorie—that breaks the resolve. By suppertime, not only has the resolve to stay away from high calorie foods been broken, hunger has set in. So, the first actual meal of the day is enjoyed after 6 p.m. and may continue into the evening, or it may resume with stress-related sleeplessness in the middle of the night. By daybreak, fatigue and a lack of appetite set up the start of that “starvation” diet once again. “We hope that those who are able to beat the night-eating cycle will do better in weight loss programs,” Pawlow said. “By interrupting the cycle, people may be able to change their eating pattern and move to a healthier lifestyle.” Pawlow is looking for male and female (not pregnant) study volunteers,
18 and older, who are not in a night job nor have they started a weight
loss program. The study will require only three visits to the Weight
Management Center and one week of keeping food records. If interested,
call 792-5577 to request information.
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