The association between sleep duration and obesity amongst Canadians aged 12 and over

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1 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
2 Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.962v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Global Health, Public Health
Keywords
obesity, bmi, canadian community health survey, CCHS, ghrelin, leptin, negative correlation, sleep, sleep duration, body mass index
Copyright
© 2015 Temkit et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Temkit M, Yaya S. 2015. The association between sleep duration and obesity amongst Canadians aged 12 and over. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e962v1

Abstract

Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may trigger risk of chronic illness, reduce life expectancy, and affect quality of life. Body Mass Index (BMI), which relates the body’s weight with height, has been widely used and accepted as a simple method to classify medical risk by weight status. Several variables are thought to be correlated with obesity in Canadian children, adolescents, and adults. The objective of this project is to investigate the effect of sleep duration, leptin levels, and ghrelin levels on the prevalence of obesity in Canada. The number of hours spent sleeping per night and self-reported BMI data from the 2011-2012 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) are analyzed. The CCHS covers approximately 98% of the Canadian population aged 12 and over. It is hypothesized that a lack of sleep and later bed times are associated with a greater daily energy intake, lower leptin levels, and higher ghrelin levels, ultimately leading to obesity. Data analysis indicates a negative correlation, thus the hypothesis is accepted.

Author Comment

This submission is part of an undergraduate student research project completed through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) at the University of Ottawa. It has been presented at the UROP Symposium held on April 2, 2015 at the University of Ottawa.