Teens who wish to lose weight ought to consider getting sufficient sleep, which, according to a US doctor in a study published in the journal, Sleep, is 8 hours or more every night.

sleep for weight loss in teensDr. Susan Redline of Boston’s Brigham and Womens Hospital as well as the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the lead author of the study, says that there are definite links between shorter amounts of sleep in teens and chronically altered dietary patterns that lead to weight gain.

In a statement, Dr. redline said,

The relative increase in fat consumption among shorter sleepers by 2.2 percent per day chronically may contribute to cumulative increases in energy consumption that would be expected to increase risk for obesity and cardiovascular disease

The study found that teens who sleep less than 8 hours on week nights tend to eat much higher proportions of snacks and fatty foods than those who get a full 8 hours or more sleep. The study reveals that for each one hour increase in the duration of sleep, there was a 21 percent reduction in the odds of consuming high levels of calories from snacks.

Dr. Redline and her colleagues looked into the eating habits of a group of 240 teens between the ages of 16 and 19 in the ongoing Children’s Sleep and Health Study in Cleveland at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and also at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital.