(PS7-39) Examining the Relationship Between Sleep and Binge Eating in Adults

There is an established association between eating disorders and sleep disturbance, however most of this research focuses on anorexia nervosa (AN). There is less research regarding binge eating disorder (BED) and bulimia nervosa (BN), and the evidence connecting sleep disturbance with these two conditions is inconsistent (Cooper et al., 2020). Self-reported daytime sleepiness has been associated with greater odds of self-reported recent binge eating episodes in overweight/obese participants, even when accounting for body composition (Kelly et al., 2016), and bulimic patients have self-reported more sleep disturbances than controls (Latzer et al., 1999). Contrasting results have been found in other studies, such as no sleep differences between those with BED and controls and no sleep differences between those with AN, BN, and controls (Tzischinsky & Latzer, 2006; Levy et al., 1987). Further, prior research has demonstrated that those with BED and BN tend to binge later in the day (Schreiber-Gregory et al., 2013; Smyth et al., 2009), and food intake in close proximity to sleep onset time is associated with poor sleep outcomes in healthy populations (Crispim et al., 2011). Existing studies do not cover binge eating timing’s potential impact on sleep.

In the present study, 1256 adult English-speaking participants (55.8% female; mean age of 33.16, SD = 14.79) were recruited from Connect (an online participant recruitment platform; Hartman et al., 2023). They completed an anonymous survey hosted on Qualtrics that included the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire Short Form (EDE-QS) (Prnjak et al., 2020), PROMIS Sleep Disturbance (SD) Short Form (Yu et al., 2012), and PROMIS Sleep Related Impairment (SRI) Short Form (Yu et al., 2012).

In the sample, 264 (21%) participants reported eating behaviors on the EDE-QS that placed them above the cutoff for disordered eating, and 371 (29.6%) participants reported at least one binge eating behavior (loss of control and/or overeating) in the past week. The majority (66.6%) of binge eating occurred between 4:00 PM and midnight, and the majority (73.0%) of people binged junk food (e.g., snack food, fast food). Both sleep disturbance and sleep-related impairment were correlated with binge eating symptoms (r_SD = .27, p < .001; r_SRI = .38, p < .001) and total EDE-QS score (r_SD = .36, p < .001; r_SRI = .43, p < .001). Sleep disturbance, but not sleep related impairment, was correlated with the timing of binge episodes (r_SD = .17, p = .001), indicating a weak association between binge eating later in the day and sleep disturbance.

These findings support previous research that associates disordered eating and impaired sleep and demonstrate that binge eating specifically is related to sleep impairment. Existing studies tend to have smaller samples of participants with diagnosed eating disorders, while this study recruited from the general population to explore the existence and impact of binge eating more broadly. Though this study does not explore the direction of the relationship between sleep and binge eating, it signifies that sleep habits should be considered in the treatment of those with binge eating, and there is likely value in addressing binge eating that occurs later in the day.