Increasing obesity rates? Be wary of teenage sleep deprivation!

Obesity is a chronic metabolic disease caused by multiple factors, characterized by an increase in the volume and number of fat cells in the body, resulting in an abnormally high percentage of body fat to body weight and excessive fat deposition in certain localities. Simple obese patients have a relatively uniform distribution of fat throughout the body, no endocrine disorders, and no metabolic disorders, and their families often have a history of obesity. Since the 1980s in China, obese children have been increasing year by year, with an average annual growth rate of 10% and an annual growth rate of 30% in individual regions and individual age groups. There are many causes of obesity, genetic factors, social and environmental factors, psychological factors and lack of exercise can lead to obesity, however, how many people know that lack of sleep in adolescence is also one of the important causes of obesity! As the adolescent study load increases, the sleep time is relatively reduced compared with the childhood period. Insufficient sleep increases the risk of obesity, possibly by affecting metabolic regulation and appetite control. Since food choice plays a central role in energy intake and can directly contribute to overweight or obesity, and since food choice, as a pattern of behavior that triggers obesity, is influenced by sleep as much as other lifestyles, the relationship between sleep and eating patterns has become a focus of attention. A study found that sleep deprivation in 10- to 11-year-old children led to excessive intake of high-energy foods, and Nedeltcheva et al. concluded that sleep deprivation simply increased snack intake rather than the normal prescribed dietary calories. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the intake of high-energy foods such as fat links the association between sleep and BMI, and that insufficient sleep, such as delayed bedtime, can trigger irregular meal patterns and increase the intake of tasty, high-energy foods. Impaired sleep and reward-related areas of the brain are interconnected, and the sensitivity of the hypothalamic sleep regulatory system and amygdala to sleep deprivation is also linked to diet, so that stressful sleep deprivation and sensation-seeking behaviors are reflected in increased intake of snacks and high-energy foods by the body. In addition, sleep deprivation leads to decreased plasma leptin levels and increased levels of gastric hunger hormone and cortisol, which alter glucose homeostasis in the body and ultimately affect food intake. Therefore, adolescents should ensure at least 8 hours of sleep per day.