Experimentally induced sleep restriction relates to less healthy eating behaviors in some adolescents: effects of age, sex, race, weight class, and socioeconomic status.

Study objectives: This secondary data analysis study was designed to evaluate demographic and socioeconomic characteristics that may increase the magnitude of the impact of experimentally induced shortened sleep on suboptimal eating behaviors in adolescence.

Methods: Sixty-four adolescents completed a two-phase crossover study comparing five nights of restricted sleep to five nights of healthy sleep with adherence determined via accelerometry and with order randomized. Participants completed a 24-h dietary recall on the final day of each condition. We conducted repeated-measure t-tests to examine the main effect of experimental condition on dietary outcomes and general linear models to test the moderating impact of sex, age, race, income, and weight class on these relationships.

Results: There was no significant main effect of sleep condition on any dietary outcome. However, we found that males in the restricted sleep condition ate more added sugar, more carbohydrates, and fewer fruits than when in healthy sleep. Furthermore, younger adolescents consumed more carbohydrates, sugar, and added sugar when sleep restricted, compared to sleep extension. Lastly, adolescents from lower-income households consumed fewer vegetables when sleep restricted compared to when sleep was healthy, while-contrary to our hypothesis-participants from higher-income households consumed more vegetables in the restricted sleep condition relative to healthy sleep.

Conclusions: While no significant main effects of sleep duration on any dietary outcome were observed, this study provides preliminary evidence that restricted sleep can increase unhealthy eating habits, especially for males, younger adolescents, and adolescents from low-income households, informing obesity prevention and intervention efforts.