Sleep and its effect on food related self-control

During the last decades the obesity rate has grown dramatically. That is why a lot of research has been done on possible causes. One such plausible link has been found in sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation has been linked to an impaired prefrontal cortex (PFC) and executive functioning, of which self-control is an important part. This is why the main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of sleep on food-related self-control. The manipulation of sleep was controlled by the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ), online sleep diaries, by wearing an actigraph device and through performing the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT). Food choices as well as self-control were measured using a choice task with simultaneous eye-tracking measurements. As expected, no deviations were found in sleep patterns between control and experimental weeks, but reaction times were significantly slower during the wake condition in the experimental week. However, participants chose healthy products more often and rated these also higher in both conditions. No significant effects were found in reaction times of the responses during the choice task between the sleep and wake condition. When dividing the group into restrained and non-restrained eaters, only the non-restrained eaters seemed to be affected by sleep deprivation. These contrasting results strengthen the fact that more research has to be done.