Loss of sleep increases obesity

October 20th, 2006

There’s been a lot of publicity in the UK over the last few days about research which has found that sleep deprivation in teenages can cause hormonal changes that can result in obesity.

The TV and newspapers have been full of information about how teenagers are spending too much time playing computer games in the evening, or later, and therefore reducing their sleep time, triggering hormonal changes that induce them to overeat and hence increase their chances of becoming obese.

I can’t question the validity of this research, of course, however I do wonder if it is missing the point.

The pathway from lack of sleep to hormonal changes to increased appetites to obesity is a bit of a long and tortuous one. Surely any hormonal changes must be small and therefore the final effect on increasing obesity must be small too.

Much more threatening to the health of our children, is the general lack of physical exercise that the young are suffering from. Spending evenings playing computer games instead of kicking a football around a field must surely account for incidences of over weight and obese children.

Exercise makes you physically tired, so you sleep better and then, according to this research, your hormones will be more in balance and you will control your eating (though I must confess that exercise makes me hungry and I have to be careful not to overeat as a result!).

So lets do everything that we can to encourage our children to be as active as possible. I am convinced that they will be sharper intellectually, healthier and happier as a result. What could be better than that?

Entry Filed under: Healthy Lifestyles