Study: Less Sleep Associated with Distracted Eating, Obesity

Getting less than 7 hours of sleep is associated with increased rates of distracted eating and drinking and potentially obesity, according to a new study.

Previous studies have documented the association between short sleep and obesity risk, but the pathway for this association is less well understood.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
Study: Losing 30 Minutes of Sleep Increases Obesity Risk by 72%
Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Effects on Metabolic Derangements
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To examine whether short sleep is associated with secondary eating—which researchers identified as eating and drinking while engaged in another activity—researchers conducted a pooled cross-sectional study using data from the American Time Use Survey between 2006 and 2008, involving 28,150 adults between 21 and 65 years old.

Overall, short sleep was associated with an additional 8.7 minutes a day of secondary eating compared with normal sleep times (between 7 and 8 hours). It was also associated with an additional 28.6 minutes of secondary drinking on weekdays and 31.28 minutes of secondary drinking on weekends.

“We find that short sleep is associated with more time spent in secondary eating and, in particular, secondary drinking. This potentially suggests a pathway from short sleep to increased caloric intake in the form of beverages and distracted eating and thus potential increased obesity risk, although more research is needed,” they concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Tajeu GS, Sen B. New Pathways From Short Sleep to Obesity? Associations between short sleep and “secondary” eating and drinking behavior. American Journal of Health Promotion. December 2015 [epub ahead of print]. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4278/ajhp.140509-QUAN-198.