Sleep and Obesity

According to my morning St. Paul Pioneer Press, a recent study shows a correlation between obesity and hours of sleep.  The study reportedly found that people who sleep less than six hours a night or more than nine were more likely to be obese. 

The full article by Associated Press medical writer Mike Stobbe is all over the internet and it provides more:

The study released Wednesday is based on door-to-door surveys of 87,000 U.S. adults from 2004 through 2006 conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Such surveys can't prove cause-effect relationships, so -- for example -- it's not clear if smoking causes sleeplessness or if sleeplessness prompts smoking, said Charlotte Schoenborn, the study's lead author.

It also did not account for the influence of other factors, such as depression, which can contribute to heavy eating, smoking, sleeplessness and other problems.

The study, Sleep Duration as a Correlate of Smoking, Alcohol Use, Leisure-Time Physical Inactivity, and Obesity Among Adults: United States, 2004-2006 by Charlotte A. Schoenborn, M.P.H., and Patricia F. Adams, Division of Health Interview Statistics, is available on the National Center for Health Statistics website (linked above). 

In an interview, health statistician Charlotte Schoenborn explains:

We found with the Health Interview Survey that people who got less than 6 hours of sleep were more likely to be obese… they were more likely to be physically inactive… they were much more likely to smoke… and somewhat more likely to use alcohol in large quantities… things that you associate with a clustering of unhealthy behaviors.

… we don’t know which direction the associations go, what’s causing what, but we do see a clustering of these unhealthy behaviors and it suggests that we need to be dealing with these as a group rather than one at a time.

The interview is available on the NCHS website (along with a link to the study): http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/STATCASTS/stat_cast_6.htm