The American Academy of Pediatrics found that 73% of high school students don’t get enough sleep each night. People who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to have problems with their mental health, their academic performance, and behavioral problems. However, new research from BYU that was done at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center says that teenagers who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to gain weight and have other heart and metabolic diseases as they tend to have bad eating habits when they don’t get enough sleep.
Teens who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to eat more carbs and sugars and drink more sugar-sweetened drinks than when they get enough sleep, says Dr. Kara Duraccio, the lead author of the study.
Getting enough sleep should be at the top of our list when it comes to helping teens maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle.
Tired teenagers may want to stay awake until they can go to bed, so they’re looking for foods that are high in carbs and added sugars. The study showed that teens who didn’t get enough sleep ate 12 extra grams of sugar each day. Over the 180 nights of a school year, most teenagers don’t get enough sleep. If they eat an extra 12 grams of added sugar each day, they could gain over 4.5 pounds of sugar each year.
Duraccio: “We know that pediatric obesity is an epidemic, and we’ve focused on a lot of interventions to try and address it, but sleep is not one of the things that researchers tend to focus on,”.
He went on to say “If we are really trying to discover preventative strategies or interventions to increase optimal weight in teens, getting enough and well-timed sleep should be at the forefront of our efforts.”
