Obesity Case Study

Sacrificing Sleep? This is What It Will Do to Your Health by Sandee Lamott creates strategies for better health and identifies the risks one would take by not sleeping. Health-wise, it’s genuinely easy to understand how it would be unhealthy for your body and its functions. Not sleeping has been linked with many kind of disasters that range from physical occurrences such as car crashes to diseases such as dementia and anxiety. “Sleep deprivation is threatening the health of up to 45% of the world’s population,” (Lamott, 1). Many individuals like myself have been/are sleep deprived, in fact, “50 million to 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders,” (Lamott, 1).

Many times people think they can accomplish more if they could eliminate so much sleeping time.  However, they are only hurting their productivity if they lose sleep.  Two articles deal with the issue of sleep deprivation.  The College Student Journal published an article about the grade-point average of college students and sleep length, while U.S. News & World Report produced an article dealing with the lack of

Numerous dimensions of sleep are capable of predicting significant health outcomes. Inadequate sleep is a frequently explored area within research and respective associations have been drawn in regards to its effect on both mental and physical health (Kroese, Evers, Adriaanse, Ridder, 2016). Digdon and Howell (2008) note procrastination to be the inclination to postpone task commencement or conclusion, wavering actions, or the demonstration of insufficient time allotment for the accomplishment of tasks. Therefore, opting to go to bed later than primarily intended with no external influence is termed bedtime procrastination (Kroese., et al. 2016).

Well they were right in more ways than one. The more sleep one gets, the better they will feel about the day ahead and they’ll make better choices throughout the day. “Dr. Donald Hensrud, a nutritionist and preventative medicine expert in the department of endocrinology, diabetes, metabolism and nutrition at the Mayo clinic, said one of the most immediate health dangers for many obese people is sleep apnea” (“Neporent”). Sleep apnea is a condition in which someone gasps or stops breathing for a moment while sleeping.

sleep debt. Sleep debt does not let people to get “sufficient sleep on a chronic basis” (Open Stax, 2016).

In the article, “At Every Age, Feeling the Effects of Too Little Sleep,” Jane Brody examines the impacts of sleep deprivation on human health. She argues a significant portion of Americans, throughout all demographics, sleep for fewer than the recommended number of hours each night and that this constant sleep deprivation leads to negative health effects in the short and long terms. Brody attests current sleep levels are inadequate for the sustained health of the American population, claiming hanges ought to be made in order to bring sleep amounts up to a reasonable amount for increased longevity and quality of life. Particularly, Brody advocates for later start times for teenagers and

According to a 16 year study presented in 2006 at the American Thoracic Society International Conference; women who slept 7 hours or more per night weigh less than women who slept 5 hours or less. Women who slept 6 hours per night were 6% more likely to be obese and 12% more likely to gain at least 33lbs or more. Women who slept 5 hours per night were 15% more likely to be obese and 32% more likely to gain at least 33lbs or

We will use a simple questionnaire that was used in the Emmons and Mcullough (2003) study to operationalize the sleep variable. The questionnaire will ask participants three questions. The first question will be a close-ended question that asks participants to rate the quality of sleep they received the previous night on a scale of 1 (restless) to 5 (restful). The second question will be open-ended, asking participants to indicate the hours of sleep they had the previous night. Hours of sleep will be calculated as the total hours in bed minus time spent awake. Our last question will be an optional and open-ended question that will ask participants if they

Sleep can also be looked at to help the fight against obesity. Studies have shown that on short nights of sleep people consume more calories and most of the increase is calories from fat (St-Onge 2011). This study looked at people with a BMI of 22-26 on a short night’s sleep (4 hours), and a normal night’s sleep (9 hours). The level of activity in people on short versus long nights of sleep was not significantly different, however their increased caloric intake was ~300 on short nights of sleep, most of which were snacks (St-Onge 2011).

Lack of sleep has been identified as a major public health issue found to contribute to chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes (type 2) and hypertension. As sleeping habits worsened over the years, obesity and unhealthy eating trends continued to climb. In contrast cross-sectional studies support the notion that sufficient sleep promotes “health related behaviors,” such as balanced diet and regular exercise. Concerning college students suffering from severe lack of sleep, it was found many had irregular eating habits, trouble with portion control, poor food choices, and low “eating competence.” The purpose of the research study was to identify the relationship between eating competence, standard of sleep and sleep patterns (Quick et al., 2015)

Melnick, M. (2010, September 2). Lack of sleep linked with depression, weight gain and even death. Times. Retrieved from

While certainly interesting, this line of research has some gaps. Primarily, insufficient sleep is not the only form of disordered sleep. Several sleep disorders can be diagnosed, and they all may have implications for behavioral outcomes (National Sleep Foundation, 2014b). In addition, while cognitive deficits linked to disordered sleep are compelling, cognition is not the only domain which may suffer in the face of sleep problems. In fact, disordered sleeping has also been reported as a risk factor for the development of several behavioral problems (Reynolds & O’Hara, 2013). Finally, much of the research in this area has proposed unidirectional models of behavior. For example, disordered sleep is often posited as increasing the risk for various behavioral outcomes. However, it is also true the presence of certain behavioral disorders increase the risk of disordered sleeping (Reynolds & O’Hara, 2013). In fact, to both reflect the importance of sleep on overall functioning and to address these issues of co-morbidity, the American Psychiatric Association drastically changed the Sleep-Wake Disorders section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for the recent release of the 5th edition (Reynolds & O’Hara, 2013). The DSM-5 offers four broad diagnostic categories of sleep disorders: Insomnia disorder, Hypersomnolence disorder, Narcolepsy, Breathing-related sleep disorders (e.g., sleep apnea), and Parasomnias (e.g.,

The variables I observed analyzed the correlation between body max index (BMI) and average hours of sleep amongst the students in the class. I was interested in the relation between these two variables because I have previously researched an article on WebMd that claimed those who are sleep deprived are more prone to live unhealthy lifestyles. As college students, we typically sleep less than the average adult would due to academic and social responsibilities that can push those to neglect a healthy sleep schedule in exchange for more time to accomplish their duties, which in turn affects our health in numerous ways.

Transition : Besides diet and physical activities, sleep also play an important role to keep our body healthy

One unnoticed malefactor in the world’s obesity epidemic may be the alarm clock, according to Till Roenneberg, a professor at the University of Munich’s Institute of Medical Psychology. He studies “social jet lag” from individuals on airplanes. “Social jet lag is the chronic clash between what our bodies need [more sleep] and what our lives demand [being on time]” (Kalb). In a study, Roenneberg and colleagues examined the sleep habits of more than 65,000 adults. Two-thirds of them suffered from social jet lag, experiencing at least a one-hour inequality between how long they slept on workdays and weekends (Kalb). For every hour that social jet lag augmented, one increased his chances of being overweight by thirty three percent (Kalb). Studies have suggested that privation of sleep causes higher secretions of ghrelin, the appetite hormone, and a reduction of leptin, the