The impact of short sleep on food reward processes in adolescents

Abstract

Restricting sleep leads to greater food consumption in school-aged youth (Hart et al., 2013) and greater consumption by adolescents of foods that have a high glycaemic index and load (Beebe et al., 2013), without compensatory increases in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (Van Dyk et al., 2018). However, the mechanism driving the increase in food intake following short sleep remains unclear. Adolescence is an important developmental time with respect to eating behaviour. In addition to establishing long-term dietary patterns, adolescents are much more independent in their food choices than are younger children, so their internal motivational feelings

The association between sleep and early pubertal development in Chinese children: a school population-based cross-sectional study

“…The food reward system, consisting of food pleasure and food desire, encourages overeating and changes children's food preferences. An experimental study among adolescents corroborated that sleep restriction led to a preference for energy-dense/nutrientpoor diets, as well as a readiness to pay more for them (27). Similarly, by interfering in judging the value of food, this reward system can be activated by late bedtime (22).…”

The Effects of Acute Sleep Curtailment on Salt Taste Measures and Relationships with Energy-Corrected Sodium Intake: A Randomized Cross-Over Trial with Methodology Validation

“…Neural and behavioral reactivity to pleasurable experiences increase after sleep deprivation and curtailment [65]. For example, under conditions of shortened sleep, consuming sweets becomes more pleasurable after one night of short sleep; therefore, liking and consumption of sweets increase [66]. However, previous studies noted the anterior insula of the brain, which is the putative primary taste cortex [67], was activated more with NaCl than with sucrose solutions [64].…”

Systematic Metabolic Profiling of Mice with Sleep‐Deprivation

“…[2,3] The "sleep debt" caused by chronic sleep deprivation (SD) can be more harmful than people think. [4] SD can cause depression, fear, and other negative emotions, [5,6] reduce movement and balance skills, [7,8] cause memory and cognitive impairments, [9][10][11] increase food attraction and cause obesity, [12,13] diabetes, [14] cardiovascular diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, [15][16][17] and bone diseases, [18] interfere with immune function, [19,20] and cause an increased risk of cancer, [21] and death. [15] The socioeconomic implications of SD are much more significant than we expected.…”