Katie Kidwell (PSY) PI and Maryam Yuhas (NFS) co-I, CUSE Grant – Seed Grant, 7/1/21-6/30/23.
Over two-thirds of adolescents are sleep deprived, and pediatric obesity rates continue to surge. Meta-analytic reviews reveal a connection between poor sleep and obesity, but the mechanisms of this relationship are poorly understood. Eating to regulate emotions may contribute to the relationship between poor sleep and obesity, but there is a need for experimental research using high quality measurement. The primary goal of the proposed project is to collect preliminary data examining the application of a sleep intervention on emotional eating in adolescents, in preparation for external funding proposals to support larger-scale studies in this area. Aligned with external funding mechanisms, the current application is the pilot and feasibility randomized controlled trial of a brief sleep intervention with 50 adolescents (randomized n = 25 per arm). It is expected that adolescents randomized to the sleep treatment group will have a longer sleep duration from baseline to post. This improved sleep is expected to result in decreased frequency of emotional eating.