Disordered eating partly mediates the relationship between poor sleep quality and high body mass index.
OBJECTIVE
We evaluated the relationship between poor sleep quality and high body mass index (BMI) in a community-derived sample. In addition, we explored the premise that disordered eating (i.e. eating late at night and/or binge eating, which can occur at night) may partly explain the relationship.


METHODS
An online survey asked 330 participants about their height and weight, recent sleep quality, and recent experiences of binge-eating and night-time eating.


RESULTS
Using multiple regression analyses, high BMI was shown to be related to shorter sleep duration, increased sleep latency, use of sleeping medications and worse binge-eating, whereas worse sleep quality was related to worse night-eating, after controlling for depression and demographics. Using mediational analyses, binge-eating was shown to partly mediate the relationship between worse sleep quality to higher BMI, whereas night-eating mediated the reverse association of high BMI to worse sleep quality.


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that night- and/or binge-eating may partly explain the observed relationship between worse sleep quality and overweight/obesity. Thus, the relationship may simply reflect that overweight people are more likely to binge-eat while they wait for sleep to come, and this may contribute to weight gain over time. In addition, the results may indicate that eating rather than weight gain or obesity may be responsible for causing the sleep deficits in overweight people.
Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. Electronic address: sallyluvzen@hotmail.com.
Shin-Shyuan Sally
SS
Yeh
Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. Electronic address: rhonda.brown@anu.edu.au.
Rhonda Frances
RF
Brown
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D056912:Binge-Eating Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D012044:Regression Analysis; D007319:Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
Binge eating; Body mass index; Night-eating; Obesity; Overweight; Sleep quality