Every night since childhood, Elizabeth has gorged on sweets while asleep

Every night since she was eight, Elizabeth has got out of bed, trudged to the kitchen and gorged
on sweets. She’s not awake at the time, nor is she asleep. “It’s like sleepwalking,” she explains. “It’s not like you wake up in the kitchen and think, ‘Oh, what am I doing?’ You don’t really wake up.”

Once she’s in the kitchen, Elizabeth rips open a pack of biscuits, pours herself a glass of milk, then dunks the biscuits in the milk before wolfing them down. At some point she heads back to bed before getting up another three or four times throughout the night to eat again.

The next morning, she wakes up feeling bloated and nauseous. She’s also exhausted and frustrated that, despite her best efforts, she’s had another night of uncontrollable eating.

The 78-year-old retired nurse has employed various strategies to stop this unwanted behaviour. She’s seen an array of doctors, taken numerous different medications and stayed awake until 3am in a bid to sleep through the night without eating.

Elizabeth has even tried locking her kitchen door and giving her husband the key. That worked for a while, but wasn’t sustainable long-term. She was also hospitalised once under the care of a neurologist for two weeks. “You name it, I’ve tried it,” she says.

Yet people often blame her for her night eating, saying she does it because she lacks willpower. Such comments crush Elizabeth, who says the absence of control over her own behaviour is the part she struggles with most.

Elizabeth’s issues have nothing to do with willpower, explains health psychologist Dr Moira Junge from the Sleep Health Foundation. Instead, she says, Elizabeth has sleep-related eating disorder.

People with this condition have frequent episodes of out-of-control eating and drinking while asleep. They can also have difficulty sleeping, reduced appetite in the morning and depressed mood.
While Junge says the condition is rare, it accounts for 1 to 2 per cent of the patients she sees. She adds that it’s more common in people who take certain medications and those with a history of mental health disorders.

As Elizabeth knows first-hand, the condition can be very distressing. Junge says it can also be dangerous, as some people cook in their sleep. People with the disorder have also been known to eat non-food substances such as sponges, cigarette butts and pet food.