How does sleep deprivation impact problematic eating?

Methods

Summary

Our study procedures will occur in order of these steps:

1. Potential participant contacts us with interest in participating. We email them a link to our eligibility questionnaire, which will verify if the person meets criteria to participant (e.g., are they biologically female, over the age of 18, etc.). 

2. Eligible participants will be contacted by the researcher to explain the study's procedures, and schedule their morning lab visit. At this time, participants will be assigned to either sleep a regular nights sleep or a deprived nights sleep. 

3. Participants will be emailed a baseline questionnaire (i.e., survey of anxiety, depression, sleep, demographics, and eating behaviors) to complete the day before their morning lab visit. This email will also remind participants of their sleep instructions. Participants will receive automated text messages confirming their bedtime and times to wake up. 

4. At the morning lab visits, participants will answer questions about their appetite, feelings, and urges to engage in disordered eating before and after a test meal. The test meal will involve the compulsory eating of an English muffin with a pat of butter. The participants will then be asked to consume a nutritional shake until they "feel full". 

5. Participants will be asked to complete follow-up questionnaires about their eating behaviors that evening. 

Pre Analysis Plan

- In general, we plan to examine group differences (sleep deprived group vs. regular sleep group) in terms of disordered eating urges before and after test meal, appetite feelings (e.g., hunger, fullness), and test meal consumption (i.e., How much did they consume? How long did they drink until feeling full?). 

- We also plan to examine group differences in the reported disordered eating behaviors at the follow-up. 

- Finally, we plan to investigate the potential impact that baseline levels of anxiety and depression have on sleep deprivation's effect on eating behaviors.