I m looking for information on a possible eating disorder. Is it possible that a person can be eating in the middle of the night and not remembering it?

--Andrea

Yes, it's possible for someone to eat in the middle of the night and not remember it, but that may not mean they have an eating disorder. You don't mention, for instance, whether the person has been binge-eating or just doing what some people might consider snacking. Midnight raids on the refrigerator, a favorite activity of Dagwood Bumstead from the comic pages, are not in and of themselves pathological.

There are eating disorders in which people eat large quantities of food in a short period of time -- often late at night. These binges are usually driven by a combination of physiological and psychological factors, not the least of which is the semi-starvation of chronic dieting. But most binge eaters remember eating, albeit sometimes in a daze.

The first concern I'd have in the situation you described is the memory loss, not the eating. If a real-life Dagwood came to me with no recollection of his late-night kitchen forays, I'd want to know if he could be experiencing a dissociative episode, or perhaps a sleep disorder. I'd also try to find out if he was drunk or high and had experienced a chemically induced blackout. Once I understood more about why the person wasn't remembering the eating episodes -- and provide any needed intervention for that problem -- we could then look at and deal with the eating itself, if warranted.