Sleeping Late, Eating Late Leads to Gaining Weight

A message to night owls: There's news that your bedtime -- and those late-night snacks -- may be preventing you from dropping those stubborn extra pounds. A recentstudy took on an important, and under-examined, aspect of the sleep-weight loss connection: how the timing of sleeping -- and of eating -- can affect weight. Researchers at Northwestern University examined the effects of sleep timing on diet and body-mass index (BMI), and found that late bedtimes and late mealtimes can lead to less healthful diets and to weight gain.

A group of 52 adults -- 25 women and 27 men -- spent seven days keeping food logs and having their sleep and waking activity measured by a wrist sensor. The researchers divided participants into two categories of sleepers:

• "Normal sleepers" reached the midpoint of their night's sleep before 5:30 a.m. These sleepers were asleep by shortly after midnight, and woke around 8 a.m. Among the study group, 56 percent were normal sleepers.
  
• "Late sleepers" reached the midpoint of their nightly sleep after 5:30 a.m. They went to sleep in the middle of the night, well after midnight, and woke in the mid-to-late morning. Among the study group, 44 percent were late sleepers.

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