A recent study seems to have unearthed a correlation between insufficient sleep and chronic craving of unhealthy food choices. According to the research, exhaustion boosts the activity levels in the brain’s regions dedicated to both appetite and the practice of comfort eating, along with the hormones tasked with notifying the body that it’s hungry. 

It isn’t hard to see how habitual lack of sleep can quickly lead to the adoption of consistently poor dietary choices and over time contribute to obesity and all the related health problems that go along with it. This pattern sheds some insight into why some of the most statistically overweight nations, like the US and the UK are coincidentally also some of the most sleep-deprived.

The German study out of Cologne University followed a pool of 32 healthy male participants between the ages of 19 and 32 years old and treated them to a dinner of pasta, veal, strawberry yogurt and an apple on two separate nights.

If you aren’t getting enough sleep, you’re more inclined to reach for junk foods.

After the dinner, they were told to either go back home and sleep regularly or stay with the researchers at the lab where they would be prompted to stay awake. The following morning, researchers tracked their brain activity, hormone levels and desire for junk food. After the assessment, the participants were each given three Euros, approximately $3.40 USD with which to purchase snacks or non-food items like household goods, etc. on an online auction site where they could bid upon the items of their choosing.

The participants who had been sleep deprived were the only ones who not only opted for junk food, but were also wiling to pay extra money for it. The researchers used MRI brain scans to reveal the presence of neurons in the hypothalamus and amygdala, two regions of the brain linked to reward-seeking behavior and appetite. 

Judging from the results of the study, it was pretty obvious to researchers that sleep, and more precisely, lack of sleep leads like clockwork to poor dietary choices. People looking to lose weight would do well to ensure they are getting adequate sleep or they may be unknowingly sabotaging their diet plans.

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