Student went up three dress sizes from sleep eating - a rare disorder [VIDEO]

A college student in Aberdeen, Scotland could not understand why she was gaining so much weight, despite maintaining a healthy diet and regularly exercising. It turned out she had a hidden medical disorder - sleep eating.

Kate Archibald, 20, went up three dress sizes from a 10 to a 16 in her first at the University of Aberdeen, where she studies Philosophy and World Religion.

On any given night, Kate Archibald gets up from bed and sleep-walks into the kitchen where she grabs armfuls of any food she can find, according to a student newspaper The Tab.

But it wasn't until she was diagnosed with Nocturnal Eating Disorder that she confirmed her suspicions that she had been raiding the fridge in her sleep - a rare side-effect of the ADHD medication she had been taking.

"It all started when I was at boarding school. We had like a box full of snacks at the bottom of our beds and in the morning I would wake up and it would be empty," said Archibald.

"Then in my first year of uni, I fell out with my flatmate because she claimed I was eating all her food, I argued that I wasn't - but turns out I was and had no idea I was doing it."

"People genuinely didn't get annoyed because they knew I couldn't help it, it was more of a joke between me and my friends because I would wake up with a mountain of wrappers surrounding my bed."

Archibald has managed to eat four portions of spaghetti bolognese in a single night and even make toast.

Archibald says the weirdest thing she's ever eaten is an entire wheel of cheddar cheese.

"It isn't really seen as an eating disorder, apparently it's more of a parasomnia," she explained.

"Basically, my body is conditioned to be hungry in the night and want food - even if I don't."