SNACKING IN YOUR SLEEP

Do you eat like a bird and still gain weight? Believe it or not, you may be
eating in your sleep.

Sleepeating is an unusual but far-from-rare phenomenon, according to Neil Kavey,
director of the Sleep Disorders Center at New York's Columbia Presbyterian
Medical Center. Kavey recently wired up three people thought to be sleepeaters
in a scientific attempt to show that they would try to eat in their sleep. Sure
enough, they did.

Kavey has worked with about 15 sleepeaters, who, he says, have "a strong
preoccupation with food during the day." Typically dieting, they can control
themselves while awake, but their compulsion to eat takes over while they sleep.
Common sleepwalkers, by contrast, have more of a physiological than a
psychological need to prowl, Kavey says.

Sleepeaters eat a lot during their nocturnal munching, often devouring bizarre
combinations of foods and even raw foods. "And they never clean up," Kavey
says.

Treatment includes behavioral therapies such as locking the kitchen or
refrigerator.

According to Kavey, this is the first study to show that suspected sleepeaters
are indeed walking and eating in their sleep. "Whether it's a separate syndrome
or part of classical sleepwalking, we just don't know."