Copyright © 2009
by Daniel Matthew Korn

All Rights Reserved

As a society, we began going to sleep later almost as soon as the invention of the electric light in the nineteenth century. Children are instinctively afraid of the dark, and in modern times many children have small “night lights” in their rooms, to help quell this innate fear. However, it was not so long ago that adults feared the dark as well.

The ancient walled cities of the Fertile Crescent, such as Jerusalem, Babylon, Jericho, and Uruk, all closed at sunset. Travelers feared having to make camp outside the city walls, where they were easy prey for bandits. For all of our history until late in the nineteenth century, most people stayed home after sunset, with only the light of a fire or oil lamp to keep them awake. Due to the availability of artificial lighting alone, it should not be surprising that we are sleeping less. It simply does not occur to us to be home by sunset any more, whereas in earlier eras there may have been nothing but moonlight to guide us outside.

There have been several studies that suggest that people who are sleep-deprived are much more likely to gain weight.^1,2 As a result of studies like these, which have identified what appears to be a valid correlation between sleeping less and gaining weight, erroneous articles have been published suggesting the key to losing weight may be just to try to sleep more.³

It is no wonder so many people give up hope on dieting. So much information is presented in a way that is unhelpful to most people. While these studies have taught us something valuable, it is not that trying to sleep more will make us thin. After all, perhaps gaining weight makes us sleep less? Maybe not exercising enough makes it difficult to sleep and causes weight gain (although I am not suggesting this).

In reality, people who are overweight are diagnosed with sleep disorders more often than are people of normal weight.⁴ Knowing that the odds of weight gain are greater among people who do not get enough sleep is very important to weight researchers, because it tells them that whatever is causing people to gain weight may also be causing them to lose sleep. This tends to point the blame away from things like eating fats, sugars, and refined carbohydrates and towards things which are associated with sleep disturbances.

Caffeine can cause measurable disturbances to sleep after taking as little as 200 milligrams (mg), less than the weight of an adult size aspirin. This is less caffeine than what is in a large cup of coffee, and it is less than the average amount consumed daily by the typical American. Higher amounts of caffeine consumption can cause severe problems. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the main book used to classify mental diseases, lists “caffeine-induced sleep disorder” as a psychiatric disorder.⁵ However, caffeine is not the only feature of the modern diet that is associated with sleep disturbances.

We can set an alarm clock and wake ourselves up early, but the need for sleep catches up with us. Eventually, we have to make up the lost time. Rather than blaming weight gain on not sleeping enough, we would be better off examining factors that are correlated with insufficient sleep. These include caffeine, but they could also include exercise, sunlight exposure, and other drugs. The theory of this book is not that people gain weight because they do not sleep enough. Instead, it presents the theory that the features of the modern diet that cause people to gain weight are also causing them to sleep less.⁶

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Citations:

²Nicole Weaver. "Sleep Deprivation Plays Role in Obesity." Daily News Central. 4/04/2009 http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/2594/.

³Rob Stein. "Scientists Finding Out What Losing Sleep Does to a Body." Washington Post. 4/04/2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/08/AR2005100801405.html.

⁴Kelli Miller Stacy. "Obesity Ups Odds of Short Sleep." MedicineNet.com. 4/04/2009 http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=89201.

⁵John Huetteman. "The Link Between Caffeine Consumption and Sleep Disorders." Helium. 4/04/2009 http://www.helium.com/items/475985-the-link-between-caffeine-consumption-and-sleep-disorders.

⁶David S. Sobel. "Exercise Improves Sleep.” Health World. 4/04/2009 http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=424.