The relationship between Night Eating Syndrome, depression and chronotype in a non-clinical adolescent population

Jul 9, 2019Rivista di psichiatria

How Night Eating, Depression, and Sleep Timing Patterns Are Linked in Healthy Teens

AI simplified

Circadian Biology on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Abstract

4% of adolescents in the study met the criteria for Night Eating Syndrome (NES).

The sample consisted of 301 adolescents aged 15 to 19, with a mean age of 17.64 years.
Chronotype distribution revealed 9% morning types, 68.4% intermediate types, and 22.6% evening types.
A significant inverse correlation was found between Morningness Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) scores and Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ) scores.
58.3% of participants who met NES criteria scored low on the MEQ.
Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scores were significantly associated with NES, indicating a relationship between depression and NES.

AI simplified

PURPOSE: The aim of the current study was to assess the prevalence of Night Eating Syndrome (NES) in a population of non-clinical adolescents and to investigate the relationship between NES, depression and eveningness dimension.

METHODS: The data were collected from a sample of 301 subjects, 181 females and 120 males, aged between 15 and 19 (mean value 17.64, SD=1.3). All subjects were invited to answer demographic questions and to take a self-report battery composed by three questionnaires: the Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ), the Morningness Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI).

RESULTS: The distribution of chronotypes in the sample was: morning type 9%, intermediate 68.4% and evening type 22.6%. 4% of the participants (12 subjects) reached the criteria for NES. The data indicate that MEQ and NEQ scores are significantly inversely correlated (r=-0.157; p<0.01); 58.3% of the participants who reached the criteria for NES received low scores on the MEQ. The BDI scores resulted significantly associated with the NEQ variable (r=0.275; p=0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study, as far as we are aware, which has investigated the relationship between chronotype, depression and NES in an adolescent non-clinical population. The findings of our study highlight the high prevalence of NES in the adolescent population and indicate a significant association between eveningness dimension, Depression and NES.

The relationship between Night Eating Syndrome, depression and chronotype in a non-clinical adolescent population

Abstract

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief

Abstract

Related papers

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief