Obesity and Self-Reported Short Sleep Duration: A Marker of Sleep Complaints and Chronic Psychosocial Stress

The prevalence of obesity has reached such levels to be considered epidemic and a major public health problem. In addition to the well-established contributing factors of diet and exercise, more recently chronic sleep restriction has been identified as a novel factor that may explain the increasing prevalence of obesity. Self-reported sleep duration may serve to detect subjective sleep complaints, psychosocial stress, and unhealthy behaviors, whereas objective measures of sleep may play a promising role in predicting cardiometabolic morbidity among patients with sleep complaints.