Tuesday, 16th of February 2010 at 11:56:46 AM 
If you can't see the calories, they can't get you...
I am not alone.
I was going to Google up some sensible tips to help us post-dinner-diet-ruiners stop the midnight snacketty urge, but LO! I discovered that, while I do not currently have an eating disorder, my behaviors may be soon be categorized as one. Hrm. Not sure how I feel about that.
I will freely grant that my relationship with food and my own body is strained, at best, but we care about each other deeply, me and food and my body, and even though threesomes seldom work out in the long run, we are working on it. We are talking. We are trying to be patient with each other’s foibles, like food’s tendency to only be good with really a lot of butter in it, and my desire to compare my butt to the butts of the fourteen year old cocaine addicts who grace the pages of fashion rags.
What I didn’t know was that a burning desire to have umpty-hundred snacks at night is being labelled Night Eating Syndrome, and will probably soon be a recognized medical syndrome / eating disorder.
I went through every single quiz and checklist I could find. The clearest indicators are no morning appetite (check), the desire to eat at night (OH, yeah baby), coupled with insomnia (BIG check), and stress/moodiness (which, wait, I absolutely do NOT have. I am a sparkling ray of spring sunshine Every. Living. Second. “Right, family?” I say to the people who have to live with me, and the terrified nodding of said family ensues, along with frantic whispers of “DO NOT WAKE THE BEAST!”) Okay, Maybe a little stress and moodiness. Also, most telling of all, I categorically deny having Night Eating Syndrome even though I evince every single symptom, and “categorically denying having the syndrome while evincing all the symptoms” is actually listed as a symptom in several places. HA!
If Night Eating Syndrome joins Bulimia and Anorexia and steps up from Bad, Addictive Habit to full fledged Eating Disorder Status, how long will it be before there will be drugs we sufferers can take for the rest of our life to help us not have this “disease?”
My guess? Fifteen minutes. Bank on it. (EDIT: According to the unreliable Wiki, Night Eating Syndrome is already being treated with Zoloft, whose less common side effects can include nose bleeds, sexual dysfunction, loss of bladder control, and one of my favorites, Suicidal thoughts or behavior…which can lead to my very favorite side effect for any medication: premature death. Premature death has a BIG downside, sure, but hey, if you encounter that particular side effect, whatever problem you were taking the drug to control will no longer be a burning issue for you.)
Mmmm! Delicious medicine!
If I was still smoking, I would gobble that drug up like mother’s biscuits to get off the cancerous doomsticks. I chewed gums and slapped on patches and cold turkey quit smoking approximately 7,467 times before it took, and if that drug hadn’t been contraindicated for me based on my medical history you better BELIEVE I would have been on it. (Hey! Guess what! Alanis-style-ironically, you can’t take it if you have ever been diagnosed with….an eating disorder. ANY eating disorder, it says, so will that include the one I don’t have quiiiite yet because it has yet to be recognized? Or only the big three?)
TO BE CLEAR: I’m not saying ALL DRUGS ARE BAD and ALL DISEASES INCLUDING CANCER AND LEPROSY ARE MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES JOHNSON & JOHNSON INVENTED IN ORDER TO SELL US DRUGS. (Even though I truly, in my medico-phobic heart believe a milder version of this, I am NOT saying it. Very loudly. *cough*) Here, today, I am just trying to decide how I feel about things like Night Snacking and Obsessive Overeating being labeled as disorders and medically treated with the same vocabulary as immediately life-threatening behaviors like Anorexia. After all, cigarettes will flat kill you, eventually, but we don’t call that a smoking disorder. We say it is a bad habit or an addiction.
I am trying to keep an open mind. I am trying to look beyond my essential mistrust of drug companies and my Puritan Roots desire to take responsibility for my own actions and my intense masochistic control freak nature that makes me prefer to say, “I am a bad human who is FULL of fail today,” rather than say, “These behaviors are triggered by hormonal oopsies, and maybe this isn’t ALL about me being a failure and perhaps I need a new approach to beat this.”
I am asking my fellow night eaters and Obsessive Overeaters and food weirdos of all stripes and persuasions – would you prefer to think of your midnight eaties or whatever your fail-foible is as a “bad habit” or “an addction” or would you rather be “diagnosed with a disorder?” Does calling you behaviors one or the other or the other change how you see yourself (for good or ill) or the methods you employ to modify your behavior (for good or ill)? People who had a perfect 1200 calorie day and took a power lifting class AND a pilates class only to find themselves horking an army of dark chocolate caramels and guzzling Shiraz at 11:30 PM would REALLY like to know.
As a Mental Health Professional (and sometime Practitioner!) I am casting a jaundiced eye upon the idea of “Night Eating Syndrome” as a diagnosable disorder. If the eating does not rise to the level of diagnosably-Bulimic bingeing (or “Binging,” as some of my colleagues insist on labeling it!), then why is it not recognized as a natural and normal consequence of our collective history? Having food a-plenty is a relatively new phenomenon, which exists only in PARTS of the world (what would I do at night if there WERE no food to gobble, I wonder?) I would think that, by now, we would be genetically programmed to “eat when food is available.” That’s what other large omnivores do. Watch any nature show featuring bears, wolves, etc, and listen for the statistics on the amount of food these critters will eat in ONE MEAL. You never see a bear put that salmon back in the river “because he has eaten all his Points already today.”
I would also like to point out that you left out my personal favorite possible-side-effect of Zoloft. How can I put this delicately? “Hemorrhaging from parts of your body that stuff is supposed to come out of but not blood.” How’s that? Specific enough to make you cringe, without using the “B” word or the “A” word?
I’m curious — do you find that you have the nighttime snack cravings on days when you have not been virtuous all day? Because I know that if I ate only 1200 calories and did a power-lifting class AND a Pilates class, I’d be chewing on the kitchen cabinets by 9pm just from sheer HUNGER.
I was waiting for you to ID the most dreadful side effect to be WEIGHT GAIN. What is my disorder that I would think that is a worse side effect than premature death????
I am definitely a night-eater, but I think to classify it as a disorder and prescribe medicine is just… silly. Because then what’s next? Waking up ragingly hungry in the morning must be a syndrome, too, right? Or having a slice of birthday cake the size of your head at a party! Cakehead Syndrome, coming right up.
Yeah, it’s hard. Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, to keep from eating something I don’t want to eat, I will often drink enough water that I end up getting up three times to pee. That’s life, people. I don’t want to take Zoloft for it.
Okay, my first reaction was “You’ve got to be kidding me”. Only less polite.
The thought of Zoloft freaks me out. Is there a drug for people who’re scared of psychiatric drugs?
But then I read that link and I must admit that if someone’s waking up multiple times a night, most nights, and attacking the chocolate biscuits, then that’s a different matter to me attacking them before I go to bed.
And if 10% of obese people do this, well, morbid obesity kills people too.
So it’s a problem. But in my totally-amateur opinion, it’s not a “disorder”. If I had a habit of waking up in the night and raiding the junk food, I’d be looking for some kind of help, but I wouldn’t agree to go on Zoloft just for that.
“You never see a bear put that salmon back in the river “because he has eaten all his Points already today.”” may very well be my favourite comment, ever. I definitely get the late night snacking thing…oy.
My favorite was the anti-vertigo medicine that had dizziness as a possible side effect!
I’ve had people tell me to brush my teeth right after dinner and that will keep me from snacking in the evening. Doesn’t work for me, but it might work for someone else.
@ Annette BA! HAHAHAHA! You are a girl after my own heart.
@ Reb Yeah I wake up several times a night. I generally do not go eat. But I WANT to.
And I reckon that makes the difference – if you want to eat but don’t, that’s not a disorder. Surely.
Otherwise, I’ve got a sleep disorder because I want to lie in the sun and snooze all day instead of going to work. And a laziness disorder because I want to read instead of cleaning the house and paying the bills. Somehow I don’t think drugs is the solution to any of these problems.
I thought I was the only one who enjoyed a glass of red wine and something salty after everyone else was in bed. I’m not special? It’s a bad habit, not a disease. I don’t need a prescription. I just need to brush my teeth, drink a glass of water, and go to bed.
There’s a huge difference between wanting a snack, choosing to have a snack (or not), and hauling your lard-butt out of a chair during the commercials, climbing the stairs and opening the pantry door (nothing) opening the refrigerator (nothing) opening the cupboards (nothing nothing nothing) opening the pantry door (still nothing) opening the refrigerator (still nothing) opening the cupboards (ooh, peanut butter!) grabbing a spoon and hauling it back to the basement to sink into the recliner and suck down a cup or two of peanut butter ALL WHILE YOU TELL YOURSELF NO, I DON’T NEED THIS as the monster stuffs you back into the corner of your head and sits on you until you stop struggling and let it have its way.
Yes, it is a disorder, in the same way that any other uncontrollable (or very difficult to control) action is a disorder. How can we say NOT eating (when you know darn well it will kill you) is a disorder but the opposite is not? I don’t think drugs are the only answer (counseling, anyone?), but I also can’t fault someone who chooses that path.
@ Sharon Yes. SOmetimes I want to eat and do not. But sometimes…I don’t want to eat, and DO.
So. /empathy Sandi.
I personally suffer from a similar disorder. It’s caused by my children going to bed, so I have whole MINUTES to myself and the precious little creatures are not watching me eat yummy things and demanding I share. I’m not sure what that’s diagnosed as, but I’ve always called it BABY GATES DOWN TIME and that’s when the party begins.
And what’s a party without snacks?
No, no, I’m sure you’re TOTALLY sane. Completely. And my qualification to judge the question is based on my unquestionable sanity.
Yikes. That is so me. And the “baby gates down” thing (Kira) is a part of it. Reward for getting thru the day. Bring on the celebration food! Lately I have tried a new late night snack for when I can’t resist the urge: Dried Plums formerly known as prunes. Don’t laugh. There are dangers (ahem) to eating too many, so the possible consequences limit me.
Sigh. I’ll bet they taste just dandy with red wine and chocolate.
(As an aside, anorexia isn’t an immediately life-threatening disorder, either. It can be, and left untreated, probably WILL be, but doesn’t HAVE to be.)
I am on an anti-psychotic black label drug as a result of an acute mental breakdown/major depressive episode. Black label drugs are the ones with the warning that it may cause thoughts of suicide and/or depression. You figure that one out, cuz I sure don’t get it.
Heh. Kind of like I notice a possible side-effect for sleep-aid medications is “insomnia”. Huh?
My husband and I have actually been rather amused at all the acronyms for the new, “made-up” disorders they advertise meds for on TV. Do you suffer from PWYKDH, or “Palpitations When Your Kid Destroys the House” syndrome?
My two problem times are 3PM and after my kid goes to bed. I DEVOUR salty snacks, chesse, cracker, peanut butter, doritos, etc.
Yes my favorites are the ones SO strongly linked to behaviors—-there is a pill out now I just saw in a magazine at the docs office — if you read betwen the beach pictures and the fluffy ad text, it is for some letterletterletter invented syndrome that means “I smoke and it is ruining my health” so this apparently helps you those symptoms so you can keep RIIIIIIGHT on smoking and paying for the prescription until the smoking kills you.
If you need to medicate, take the BLUE pill Nemo, you know, the one that helps you…STOP SMOKING.
I also like the invented ED
I have always thought the need for salt, cheeze, crunchy, sweet at night was from me not having enough through the day. Then I realized that it could be a food addiction growing and by dog, if I’m strong enough to get out of more than one abusive relationship I AM TO DARN TOUGH TO BE A FOOD ADDICT. That thought tends to help me when that ugly monster stirs in my midnight need to eat before bed brain.