Article Text
Abstract
Nowadays, in many sectors of the economy, society functions 24 h per day. During last century, there has been a decrease in time that people spend sleeping. Studies have suggested that disruption of circadian rhythm may lead to obesity, we assessed the relation between sleep deprivation and overweight among shift workers. A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 902 workers aged 18 to 50 years who were working on the production line, in a poultry slaughterhouse in Southern Brazil. Overweight (overweight + obese) was defined as body mass index ≥25 kg/m2. Time of sleep was categorised as: >5 h continuous/day; <=5 h continuous/day with some additional rest (sleep deprivation level I); and ≤5 h/day without any additional rest (sleep deprivation level II). The mean age of the participants was 31 years (SD =8.7), 63% of the sample were women and 20% sleep 5 h or less in continuous/day. Workers with sleep deprivation level II and level I showed higher prevalence of overweight (66.7% and 45.7% vs 37.4%) than workers who slept 5 h or more hours in continuous/day. After adjusting for sociodemographic, parent's overweight, behavioural (meals/day) and shift work (night/day), the prevalence ratios for sleep deprivation level II and level I were, respectively, 1.76 (95% CI 0.93 to 3.36) and 1.24 (95% CI 0.93 to 1.64) compared with workers sleeping >5 h continuous/day. Sleep deprivation may be an independent risk factor for overweight in shift workers.