As a college student, I am up at all hours in the night finishing assignments or just hanging out with friends. I was told when I went to college I was going to need to try and balance school work, friends, and sleep. My older brother always told me that one thing always loses out more than the other and it is typically sleep. In an article written on the Wall Street Journal, it states that it is healthy for an adult to get seven to nine hours of sleep each night. But, after coming across how sleep is good for grades I found something much more shocking. Sleep can affect weight loss, let me show you a few studies I found that help support this theory.
In a study done in the American Journal Clinical Nutrition, it claims that people who stayed up late tended to have cravings for a midnight snack. The midnight snack tended to be something that was high in carbohydrates, due to the lack and “starvation” of sleep. A second study was conducted where sleeping too little can lead to eating large portions of meals, making you gain a few extra pounds. However, this was not convincing enough to make me believe there was any correlation between sleep and weight gain.
Donald Hensrud, from the Mayo Clinic, suggests that there is an association between sleep and weight gain. He looked at a recent study conducted in men, that showed “recurrent sleep deprivation in men increased their preferences for high-calorie foods and their overall calorie intake.” This might just be something due to chance, we are not sure yet. There also is the issue of third variables that we have to worry about. Did the subjects eat during the day before, or is there something else affecting the desire for high-calorie foods?
On another hand, he looked into a study regarding the relationship and its affects on women. In this study it stated that, “women who slept less than six hours a night or more than nine hours were more likely to gain 11 pounds (5 kilograms) compared with women who slept seven hours a night.” There is not much detail in this study to help us come to a conclusion to whether or not there is a correlation but 11 extra pounds is a lot to make us worried.
Other studies such as one conducted by Bruce Bailey, professor at Brigham Young, help support this theory that weight gain and sleep have a correlation. In Bailey’s observational study, he monitored 300 female college students, ages 19 to 26, and gave them tracking devices which would monitor their walking and sleeping times. The 3oo female college students were tested before and after in order to show the best results. Researchers found that:
- “Getting less than 6.5 hours of sleep and more than 8.5 hours of sleep was linked to higher body fat”
- “High quality sleep was associated with lower body fat while poor sleep correlated with higher body fat”
- “Waking and going to sleep at the same time every day (particularly a consistent wake time) was most strongly linked with lower body fat”
Since this study was not blinded or controlled, we have to take into consideration third variables that might be affecting the data. Also, researchers used a very specific subject group which would make the results different if you used 300 father’s ranging from 50-55 years of age.
In conclusion, we can not make any assumptions that lack of sleep causes weight gain but it might be a factor. Other things we have to take into consideration is that lack of sleep affects hormones in your body that regulate hunger and lack of sleep also result in less motivation to get up and exercise.
I thought that this post was very relevant to college students as we are all likely not receiving enough sleep. I do agree that the need men felt for higher calorie foods might have been due to chance. Another confounding variable was the previous diet of these men as well as their current health status. If the men are always eating unhealthy foods, then they will not change that habit regardless of the sleep they get. Another variable that must be considered for both men and women is how accustomed to sleep deprivation their bodies are. For many of us college students, our bodies are accustomed to running on five or six hours of sleep. However, for someone who is not used to this, their body could react differently to the lack of sleep they were original so used to.
I wonder why there was a positive correlation between higher body fat and more than 8.5 and less than 6.5 hours of sleep. I wonder if that is applicable for everyone or just for most people. What i have noticed is that if I get only around 8.5 hours of sleep I become increasingly tired during the day and feel very unproductive. I know that most scientists have ruled that teenagers should get around <a href="http://www.nationwidechildrens.org/sleep-in-adolescents" 9.5 hours of sleep . Teen years can range from 13-18 and so what I wonder is if the habits acquired during those years (like sleeping for 9.5 hours) can spill over to young adult years and actually be an appropriate time frame for sleeping.
This post is so relevant to college students in particular and I was surprised that the lack of sleep lead to weight gain, when if I were asked to guess I would assume that lack of sleep would lead to weight loss. I am curious how significant the effects of this lack of sleep are or if they effect some more than others. I would assume that 99% of students on this campus are well under a healthy 7 hours of sleep a night and most are well under it.
Do you think it is a bigger concern if people get too much sleep instead of not enough? Often times when I am behind on sleep ill spend my Saturday sleeping until 1. I was very intrigued that getting more than 8.5 hours asleep could result in weight gain. Also, do you feel that hour naps can count towards the sleep that each person gets in a day. I read that napping more than 30 minutes can have a counter reaction because people will begin to fall into a deep sleep and will wake up more tired than before. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/napping-tips-expert-strat_n_3320571.html
Your blog post really stood out to me, as I am constantly struggling to get “enough” sleep as I transition into the new college lifestyle. I hate to admit it but I found myself relating to the study that you mentioned that concluded that people who stayed up later tended to have cravings for a midnight snack. The later I stay up doing work or anything else, the more I find myself craving snacks, and I have always wondered to myself why that is. The studies you included were very informational, and I feel that writing about this topic is very relevant to our college peers. I found an interesting article that lists the best strategies for a better nights sleep, so if you are experiencing any trouble sleeping then for sure read this article below!
http://psychcentral.com/lib/14-strategies-for-sleeping-better/
Despite the fact that we can’t fully conclude that this claim is true due to third variables, I could definitely see why there would be a correlation between lack of sleep and weight gain. I can vouch for the “midnight snack” claim, since it seems like every night I stay up until 2 am or so I get really hungry around midnight. Since you mostly focused on lack of sleep, here’s an article that talks about other effects of not getting enough sleep.
I had heard before that not enough sleep can cause weight gain but it was really interesting to look at the statistics. Here is an article on ways to sleep better. http://www.helpguide.org/articles/sleep/how-to-sleep-better.htm
I also did a blog post on how sleep is so vital in someone’s life and the amount we get can change various outcomes. But, I did not know sleep effects the weight of a human being based on how much we do not get/ get. This article may strengthen the points you created in your post. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/sdd/why