The Association between Body Mass Index (BMI) and Its Effect on Sleep - Essay Example

The paper “The Association between Body Mass Index and Its Effect on Sleep" is a pathetic example of a literature review on health sciences & medicine. Numerous researches have been done in order to establish the cross-sectional relationship between the effects of body mass index (BMI) on sleep among adults. Various results have been obtained whereby there are reports indicating that people with BMI, which ranges from one to three experience shorter sleep. Moreover, there is a high possibility that establishes a relationship of reduced duration of sleep with cases of obesity (Cappuccio, Taggart, Kandala, Currie, Peile, Stranges, & Miller, 2008, 626).

In fact, this issue is raising the interest of numerous researchers and the public. Nevertheless, there are critical gaps related to epidemiologic evidence, which has been gathered to understand the relationship between BMI and duration of sleep.On the other hand, other studies have indicated the effects of BIM on the sleep duration are based on sex, though this argument does not have a consistent direction of the difference. For instance, a negative relationship exists between sleep duration and BMI among men, though women indicate a U-shaped relationship (Wheaton, Perry, Chapman, McKnight-Eily, Presley-Cantrell & Croft, 2011, 1).

Nevertheless, Grandner and Drummond (2007, 67) suggested that there are health-related issues leading to the significance of having a long sleep duration. Moreover, these claims were made citing evidence concerning the role of sleep duration as a risk factor associated with mortality. The relationship between duration of sleep and BMI has been regarded as one of the classifications of the mechanisms applied in the determination of the relationship between duration of sleep and mortality (Grandner & Drummond, 2007, 67).

Therefore, this creates a critical distinction, which is apprised through the state of evidence, which can be identified through more research in this field. In addition, BIM has been applied as a reliable predictor of the duration of sleep together with other factors such as age, gender, and ethnicity (Grandner & Drummond, 2007, 67). Duration of sleep is estimated by identifying the level of BMI, whereby the relationship between these variables is applied in days that are associated with inadequacy of sleep (Taheri, Lin, Austin, Young & Mignot, 2004, 62).

On the other hand, there is a comparison, which is applied in various studies relating to the self-report regarding sleep duration and daytime sleep. In this case, information gathered through this reports is applied in fostering a better understanding of the relationship between BMI and duration of sleep (Lauderdale, Knutson, Rathouz, Yan, Hulley & Liu, 2009, 805). Nevertheless, application of sleep duration as a means of measuring the effects of BMI on sleep has been faced by a drawback of failing to identify the quality of sleep.

In fact, there are chances that people who spend relatively long duration sleeping have a chance of not getting quality sleep due to disruptions or other sleep disorders such as insomnia. However, numerous studies have compared durations of self-report of sleep, thereby establishing the objectivity of measuring duration of sleep, which is depicted through reports of poor quality of sleep. In conclusion, the paper explores the relationship between BMI and the duration of sleep, whereby results from different studies have depicted a strong relationship between duration that is attributed to inadequate sleep and the levels of BMI.

Moreover, there are other effects of the weight on sleep that are considered to be ways of addressing sleep disorders, which poses the effects of sleep inadequacy. In fact, BMI can be considered as a way of approaching this issue through a weight reduction program.