Association of Sleep Hours with Obesity in Adult Women

Ock, Sun Myeong; Ju, Sang Yhun; Choi, Whan Seok; Park, Hye Min; Jung, Kyu In; Song, Chan Jee

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The amount of sleep has recently been added to risk factors for obesity, but studies on this topic are fairly limited in Korea. We studied th relationship between the amount of sleep and obesity based on body mass index (BMI) and percent body fat in adult women.
METHODS
484 patients who visited an outpatient clinic of family medicine in a university hospital in Seoul between 2004 and 2007 were recruited. 362 adult women were finally included after excluding patients with chronic systemic diseases and those taking medication that affect body weight were excluded. Family history of obesity, past medical history, physical exercise, and sleeping hours during weekdays and weekends were obtained through questionnaires. Height, weight, BMI, and body composition were measured using Bioelectric Impedance Analyzer.
RESULTS
Subjects were divided into three groups according to sleep duration; less than 7 hours, 7~8 hours, and more than 8 hours. When obesity was defined as percent body fat (> or = 30%), the group with less than 7 hours of sleep had an odd ratio of 2.20 (95% CI 1.01~4.80) for obesity compared to the group with 7~8 hours of sleep. When obesity was defined as BMI (> or = 25), the group with more than 8 hours of sleep had an odd ratio of 2.21 (95% CI 1.14~4.27) for obesity compared to the group with 7~8 hours of sleep after adjusting for covariates.
CONCLUSION
Our study revealed that inadequate amount of sleep was associated with significantly higher odds ratio for obesity based on both BMI and percent body fat.