Summary: Using Add Health data, the research team of Lauren D. Asarnow, Eleanor McGlinchey, and Allison G. Harvey found that later bedtimes for adolescents during the school week were linked to weight gain over time. More specifically, for each hour later respondents went to bed, there was a 2.1 kg/m2 increase in BMI.
Read the story from The Washington Post: Teens with late bedtimes may be more likely to gain weight over time, study says
Excerpt:
‘The results were significant even after they controlled for things like gender, race and socioeconomic status. Interestingly, sleep duration, screen time and exercise frequency didn’t seem to affect BMI over time.
“The results are important because they highlight adolescent bedtimes, not just total sleep time, as a potential target for weight management concurrently and in the transition to adulthood,” Lauren Asarnow, a doctoral candidate at the University of California at Berkeley and co-author of the study, said in a statement.’
Read coverage on this study from other media outlets at The New York Times, NY Daily News, and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Scholarly Source: Asarnow LD, McGlinchey E, Harvey AG. Evidence for a possible link between bedtime and change in body mass index. SLEEP 2015;38(10):1523–1527. doi: 10.5665/sleep.5038. Article available online.