(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists from the United States concluded that teens who do not get enough sleep regularly eat an extra 2.04 kilograms of sugar per school year, compared to those who have healthy sleep.
Sleep is vital for humans, but it is especially important for high school students, as the body undergoes significant changes in the process of formation. However, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, most adolescents regularly lack sleep at night: 73 percent of teens sleep less than the recommended eight to nine hours a night.
Previous studies in older children have shown that sleep deprivation increases the risk of behavior, mental health problems and poor academic performance. New work by scientists from Brigham Young University and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital (USA), published in the journal Sleep , showed that chronic lack of sleep also increases the risk of weight gain and other cardiometabolic diseases in adolescents. It’s all about the eating habits of high school students, who tend to consume unhealthy foods when they sleep less.
“Lack of sleep increases the risk of teens eating more carbs and sugars and drinking more sugary drinks than when they get enough sleep,” said Cara MacRae Duraccio, MD and professor of clinical psychology, developmental psychology, and lead author of the study.
The conclusions were drawn from a study of the sleep and nutritional characteristics of 93 adolescents. For the first week, they slept six and a half hours each night, and for the next seven days, nine and a half hours. The researchers also measured calorie intake, macronutrients, glycemic load, and types of foods eaten.
The results showed that when teenagers lacked sleep, they ate more food that raised blood sugar levels, and when they had healthy sleep, they ate less. The use of such products fell on the evening, after 21 hours. Sleepy high school students also ate fewer fruits and vegetables throughout the day. At the same time, the total calorie content of food was the same in the first and second week of the experiment.
It was just that during a lack of sleep, children’s food became less useful and contained more sugar and carbohydrates. As a result, the authors of the work concluded that sleep-deprived teens consume about 12 extra grams of sugar every day. This lack of sleep throughout the school year will lead to the fact that they will eat 2.04 kilograms of sugar in excess of the norm.
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