Eating disorders tied to nighttime eating, menopausal symptom severity

Climacteric women with eating disorders are more likely to exhibit night eating habits and experience more severe symptoms of menopause, as reported in a descriptive study.

A total of 90 climacteric women participated in the study. These women completed a face-to-face interview, which covered sociodemographic and menopause questionnaires, the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, the Menopause Rating Scale, and anthropometric measurements.

Interview data showed that half (51.1 percent) of the women had night eating syndrome. However, there was no statistically significant variations in the prevalence of night eating syndrome (p=0.790) and eating disorders (p=0.634) across the climacteric periods.

Compared with premenopausal women, perimenopausal and postmenopausal women had more menopausal symptoms (p=0.001). Notably, eating disorders were positively correlated with both night eating syndrome (r=0.253, p<0.05) and menopausal symptoms (r=0.291, p<0.001).

No significant association was observed between menopausal symptoms and night eating patterns (r=0.141, p>0.05).

The findings suggest that menopausal symptom severity, instead of specific climacteric stages, may influence changes in eating habits and body composition. This highlights a need for multidisciplinary studies in order to evaluate the risk of occurrence and recurrence of menopausal symptoms, as well as their association with eating disorders in women.