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Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers who presented their findings at the annual SLEEP 2013 conference have discovered a connection between adolescent sleep patterns and dietary habits. The research team of Lauren Hale, Eric Reither, Patrick Krueger, and Paul Peppard found that teens who slept less than seven hours per night were more likely to consume fast food and less likely to consume fruits and vegetables, when compared to teens who slept more than seven or eight hours per night. This association between sleep and nutrition adds to the body of sleep research that has already demonstrated an association between short sleep duration and high body mass index in children and adolescents.
Read the HuffPost Healthy Living story here: Sleep-Deprived Teens Skimp on Produce, Eat More Unhealthy Food: Study (released on June 26, 2013).
Excerpt: “’[N]ot only do sleep teens on average eat more food that’s bad for them, they also eat less food that is good for them,’ study researcher Lauren Hale . . . said in a statement. ‘While we already know that sleep duration is associated with a range of health consequences, this study speaks to some of the mechanisms, i.e., nutrition and decision making, through which health outcomes are affected.’”
Lauren Hale is an Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University School of Medicine in Stony Brook, New York. Eric N. Reither is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Patrick Krueger is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Health and Behavioral Sciences and Sociology at the University of Colorado at Denver in Denver, Colorado. Paul E. Peppard is an Assistant Professor of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin.
Scholarly source: Krueger AK, Ph.D., Reither E, Ph.D., Peppard PE, Ph.D., Krueger PM, and Hale L, Ph.D. Do sleep-deprived adolescents make less healthy food choices? Proceedings of the annual SLEEP Conference; 2013; Baltimore, MD. (2013). Abstract available online.