We’ve all heard of the dreaded “freshmen 15”; a combination of cafeteria food, late night munchies, and lots of partying contribute to that unwanted weight gain. But, what if there is another underlying factor?
Back home I used to get a decent amount of sleep on average about 7 to 8 hours a night. When I came to Penn State and got into the swing of things I would say I’m down to about 5 hours of sleep on a daily basis. I noticed that I wasn’t as energized in the mornings and that I was feeling sluggish more often than not, I still go to the gym regularly and even eat healthier than I used to. Yet, I could see myself getting a little bit curvier around the edges and I couldn’t help but wonder why. I learned in my psych class that lack of sleep can contribute to weight gain, and so I looked further into it.
On average, college students get around 6 hours of sleep when most adults need between 7 and 10 hours of sleep. This article states that children between 5 and 10 years of age are 89% more likely to be obese when they sleep less than 10 hours a night. Adults who sleep less than 5 hours a night are 55% more likely to be obese. But, don’t take this as encouragement to sleep 10+ hours a night. As much as getting too little sleep is bad for you, getting too much sleep is harmful as well. Of course, the amount of sleep you should get is subjective to each individual person, but getting too much sleep often causes constant grogginess and decreases a person’s awareness. To add, individuals who have the habit of going to sleep late and waking up late are 2.2 times more likely to be obese than those who go to sleep early and wake up early, even if they get the same amount of sleep.
This is interesting considering that the typical college experiences include a lot of late nights and early mornings during the week, as well as a lot of late nights and late mornings during the weekend. That’s a double whammy. No wonder college students are gaining weight their first couple years of college. Other consequences of sleep loss include more illness, higher anxiety, lower GPA, and decreased athletic performance. To sum it up, as much as college students might think we are young and indestructible, we need sleep as much as our parents do.
Sources:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13679-012-0026-7/fulltext.html
https://www.uhs.uga.edu/sleep/
I believe the freshman 15 is a myth. I came to PSU and didn’t change anything about my diet or sleep schedule. I sleep on average 5-6 hours a night and my diet isn’t exactly the healthiest, but it’s not “bad”. Somehow I’ve lost 5 pounds. In order for someone to gain FIFTEEN pounds in college, they must REALLY have to let themselves go. I’m talking brownies and ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I know this comment may not relate directly to your blog, I just felt like sharing that. But in the case of sleep my body runs fairly well on 5 hours of sleep, probably because that’s all I’ve gotten on average since the beginning of high school. I’m probably just an exception to the belief, but I’m loosing weight on less sleep. Here’s a USA today article that supports your findings:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/20/sleep-loss-weight-gain/7507503/
I found your post to be extremely informative. I find myself guilty of going to bed late and waking up early to drag myself to my morning classes. I am constantly tired and never wake up feeling refreshed. I did not realize that hours of sleep was correlated with obesity rates. Because we would only be able to conduct an observational study on this topic, could the obesity be due to a confounding variable? Also we cannot eliminate the option of chance. I would like to know what else the amount of sleep per night affects, perhaps other health issues?
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/sleep-and-obesity/ This is another study done to show the risks of obesity that people face if they are not getting enough sleep.
Completely relatable blog post. I think the lack of sleep also leads to more factors that affect one’s weight. The less sleep one gets put a lot of stress on the body and the mind (since sleep is the time where we are able to reset and relax) which also makes a person more likely to gain weight. Aside from weight gain, not getting enough sleep affects your memory retention, emotion regulation, and your judgement.
I know that when I haven’t sleep for a couple of days I feel extremely irritable, but I also feel like I don’t need sleep because I have been doing “fine” without it. This creates a dangerous downward spiral because feeling like you are okay without sleep will indirectly encourage you to sleep less, putting you at risk for these side effects.
So everyone go and get a good night’s sleep tonight! But don’t forget to do your blogs and comments!
Great post! Like myself, when I was in high school, although there’s limited time, I still could keep sleeping for 7 hours per night. But in college, 5 hours sleep becomes my thing. Although I don’t feel big difference with high school because of the sleep time’s lose, I know that I want to eat more when I just slept for 5 hours last night. People always say that young people should cherish their body, because when people are old, most of the problems in their body are caused during their young time. Like the lake of sleep, even though we cannot find big difference now, I believe it would bring some bad influence to our health in the future. And the influence of lake sleep to me, is getting fat.
Sleep is definitely not something you think of when people bring up the freshman 15. Often people blame the food, late night snacking and having all kinds of unhealthy foods at easy access. I found one study in which they fed two groups of women the same diet and calories each day but one group got 8-10 hours of sleep and the other group only received 5-6. I was shocked when the study found that the group that slept more lost more weight than those who did not get a sufficient amount of sleep. I found this study here: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/sleep-weight-loss amount other interesting ones.
Great blog post. It is unfortunate that we are unable to sleep as much as we would like here. I’m curious is there any research behind taking a nap to make up for those lost hours throughout the night? For example if you sleep 6 hours then take a 2 hour nap would you still gain weight?
This post was great and relates a lot to me right now. At home I would tend to get 8-9 hours of sleep a night, but here at school I’m around 5-6 hours. I have noticed that I have been gaining weight but I always thought it was because of the food. I then realized that I eat more when I’m at home though and this post made me want to look into this topic more. My sleep schedule is what really is messing with my weight. Web MD has a great article on this topic if you would like to read it http://www.webmd.com/diet/sleep-and-weight-loss.