Is Your Late Bedtime Making You Fat?

GettyImages 780025451 Is Your Late Bedtime Making You Fat

s tempting as it may be to queue up one more episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, stealing that precious sleep time from yourself could be increasing your waistline. A study published in the journal Sleep shows a correlation between later bedtimes and higher body-mass index, according to the New York Times.

Starting in 1996, researchers followed a control group of more than 3,300 individuals, all starting from adolescence, for 13 years. Even controlling for age, race, ethnicity, sex, and other factors, the results were surprising: Every extra hour shaved from sleep time correlated with an approximately two-point increase in body-mass index. Shockingly, neither amount of exercise nor time spent watching television seemed impact the effect—though, unsurprisingly, fast-food intake did.

Long story short: Consider shutting your lights off a bit earlier tonight. Your waist will thank you . . . and don’t you have CrossFit in the morning, anyway?