Why watching late night World Cup matches could make you fat

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FT Desk

Staying up late over the summer to watch World Cup matches is a novelty many of us have enjoyed recently, but it could be impacting our health.

For football fans in the United Kingdom, some World Cup matches have taken place in the early hours of the morning, including 1am, 2am, 3am and 4am.

The subject hit national news last week when Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave pubs and bars around the country an extended license to show England's showdown with Mexico in the World Cup Round of 16, which was scheduled for a 1am kick-off and then delayed by an hour due to weather in and around the Azteca Stadium.

A new study by researchers in the United States has determined that consistently losing around 90 minutes of sleep each night may gradually contribute to weight gain and increase the risk of health problems.

Despite spending more time awake, participants didn't become more active. Instead, they spent longer periods sitting.

The study from Columbia University followed 95 adults from New York who typically slept for between seven and eight hours each night. During the trial, participants pushed their bedtime back by 90 minutes for six weeks before returning to their normal sleep schedule for a further six-week period.

Throughout the study, researchers used wrist-worn devices to monitor sleep while also recording changes in body weight, waist circumference, body composition and appetite-related hormones.

Published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the research focused solely on the impact of reduced sleep.

That means that factors related to diet were not incorporated, meaning those late night pizza, beer and snack sessions did not impact the results.

Dr Faris Zuraikat, assistant professor of nutritional medicine at Columbia, said participants, on average, gained one pound of fat during the six-weet study. That may not sound like much, but it could have long-term effects.

“Our study was designed to mimic sleep patterns that most adults experience chronically,” he said.

“When extrapolated to a full year, we would expect that losing less than an hour and a half of sleep per night could result in clinically meaningful weight gain.”

Prof Marie-Pierre St-Onge, professor of nutritional medicine at Columbia University, said: “Our study shows that getting adequate sleep may help reduce the risk of weight gain and obesity-related conditions like heart disease and diabetes.

“People tend to gain weight over the course of their adulthood, and obesity is a major risk factor for heart disease.”

It is generally accepted that not getting enough sleep can lead to changes in appetite and diet. The more severe the sleep deprivation, the more severe impact it can have.

The study from Columbia estimated that a third of adults only get around five or six hours of sleep per night, below the advised eight hours.

Prof St-Onge said: “Though more research is needed to further understand how sleep restriction leads to weight gain, all of our findings suggest that insufficient sleep increases the risk of obesity-related conditions like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.”

Though the World Cup ends on 19 July, it's a warning to those of us who regularly don't get enough sleep, even when unmissable football games aren't on to watch.