Assessment of night eating syndrome among late adolescents

With the increase in the trend of social networking, celebrations, over a couple of decades weather in the hostel or at home. Snacking has become an important aspect of activity. Today teen prefer snacks more than a proper meal. Skipping of meal and nibbling in between meal is a common practice. The main meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) are missed and total proportions of calories are consumed from the snacks eaten. Hence, this disordered eating behavior when continued may further lead to development of serious syndrome i.e., night eating syndrome. A purposive random sample comprising 188 males and 192 females (N=380), adolescents (18-22 years) were selected including hostlers and day scholars. The subjects were administered with self-organized questionnaire so to analyze the pattern of NES among them. Out of total 380 respondents, the numbers of hostlers were 211 and day scholars 169, while boys were 188 and girls were 192 in number. Results indicated that nearly half the percentage of adolescents snacked at night, out of which very few respondents met the criteria of NES, in which the number of hostlers were quite more than the day scholars, i.e.,76.3%.