Posts Tagged ‘how sleep can effect your body weight’

Lack of Sleep Can Get You Fat

Scientists have discovered another contributor to unwanted weight. Lack of sleep is another major contributor for unwanted weight. You can find more articles and tips on reducing your belly fat at flatten-belly.com

A recent study carried out by researchers in the United States, people who get less sleep at night are more likely to choose food the next day that will put on extra pounds, compared to people who got a better sleep in the night.

“It’s possible people are less motivated to make healthy food choices when they’re really tired,” according to Tony Wells, a graduate student who co-wrote the study with Dr Dean Cruess, in the ‘Psychology and Health’ journal.

In fact, the researchers at the University of Pennsylvania came to the conclusion after recording the sleep hours and food intake of 50 undergraduates over a period of four days, and calculating the number of calories in meals.

In the first night, the participants slept for eight hours while in the second night they slept for four hours or less. On the following day, the researchers found that the sleepy students mainly chose foods based on convenience — whatever was easiest to prepare or buy.

However, the researchers are yet to figure out why the change in food choice occurs — they speculate the reduced thinking capacity brought on by loss of sleep could lead people to choose junk food.

In addition, they found that if people lose enough sleep, all their energy may be spent trying to stay awake, and things like healthy diets might fall to the wayside. “If a person has a major drive such as a need to sleep, they may focus on that one drive at the exclusion of others, such as getting more food,” Wells wrote. This highlights the importance of sleeping well.

Another study points to the fact that, children lacking enough sleep face a risk of becoming obese than kids who get a good night’s sleep. Each extra hour of sleep cuts the risk of getting overweight by 9 per cent. Children who got the least sleep had 92 per cent higher chance of being overweight or obese than children who slept enough.

The analysis shows a clear association between sleep duration and risk of overweight . The risk declined with more sleep. Desirable sleep behavior may be an important low cost means for preventing childhood obesity and should be considered.

Interesting enough another article on effect of chocolate on unwanted weight can be seen at eat chocolate to stay slim.