If you’re overweight and you’re also tired all the time, the
two are probably connected.
It’s long been observed that sleep problems lead to weight
problems but it’s never been totally clear why this is so although my own
observation – one test subject, namely me, is that when I’m tired, I tend to
visit the fridge much more often, and it’s not because I’m looking for veggies.
Rather, in my case, it’s nearly always to check out the ice
cream stash.
And two new studies show that I’m probably a prototype for
why weight problems and tiredness from lack of sleep are connected.
In one study, a small group of healthy volunteers were sleep
deprived by getting locked in a sleep lab for a few days.
The researchers found that those subjects ate significantly
more calories when sleep deprived than they did when fully rested.
In a second study, researchers have noted – this will shock
you, I’m sure - that sleep deprived teens tend to eat more junk food and not
more veggies when they’re tired.
What could be more tempting, eh, than to advise that if you
want to watch your weight, you should sleep it off, although that’s also
obviously very hard for many people to do in our stress-filled, hurry-up world.
