Sleep and food intake

Abstract Short sleep duration is of growing public health concern due to increasing evidence that it leads to weight gain and obesity. Much of the evidence presented in this chapter lends support to the hypothesis that short sleep duration increases food intake via both homeostatic and hedonic mechanisms. But bi-directionality in the relation between sleep and food intake has been established, implicating diet quality, quantity, and/or timing as underlying factors in the regulation of sleep duration and/or quality. The effect of food intake on sleep is of practical interest in that preventive solutions to short sleep duration, poor sleep quality, and disordered sleep are becoming increasingly relevant in a population with decreasing average sleep duration.