Relationship between night eating syndrome, eating disorders, and menopausal symptoms in climacteric women: a pilot study.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between night eating syndrome, eating disorders, and menopausal symptoms in climacteric women.

Methods: In this descriptive study, 90 climacteric women who met the inclusion criteria volunteered to participated. The data for the participants were collected via a face-to-face interview method using a sociodemographic and menopause questionnaire, the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, the Night Eating Questionnaire, and the Menopause Rating Scale, and their anthropometric measurements were recorded.

Results: Among all participants, 51.1% had night eating syndrome. However, the night eating syndrome ( P  = 0.790) and eating disorders ( P  = 0.634) of the participants did not differ significantly according to the climacteric periods. Menopausal symptoms were found to be higher in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women than in premenopausal women ( P  = 0.001). There were significant positive correlations between eating disorders and both night eating ( r  = 0.253 and P  < 0.05) and menopausal symptoms ( r  = 0.291 and P  < 0.001). There was no relationship between menopausal symptoms and night eating habits ( r  = 0.141 and P  > 0.05).

Conclusions: Eating disorders were found to be associated with night eating and menopausal symptom severity in climacteric women. There is a need for multidisciplinary studies to measure the risk of occurrence and recurrence of menopausal symptoms and the association with eating disorders experienced by women.