Sleep can be a Catch-22: Most people who are sleep-deprived feel
lousy; and people who feel lousy often struggle to sleep. Two
new studies suggest food can perpetuate this unhealthy cycle in
teens, particularly in teenage girls. One of the studies, which
were presented today at the meeting of the Associated
Professional Sleep Societies in Minneapolis, found that teen
girls who felt pressured to be skinny had more difficulty
sleeping than their body-comfortable counterparts. The other
found that sleepy teens were more likely to crave carbohydrates.
Together the research suggests teens may have unrealistic
expectations of how their bodies should look and what they
should eat to fuel them. "I think ours is one of the first
studies to look at body image and sleep," said Katherine
Marczyk, a doctoral student at the University of North Texas in
Denton, and lead author of the body image study in teen girls.
Out of 789 middle school girls in Texas studied, Caucasians were
most likely to be affected by pressure from f