In Cameroon, poor sleep is associated with eating disorders
According to a new study conducted at the University of Douala, poor sleep quality affected 73.7% of students, with significant links to eating disorder risks and body composition changes.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), sleep deprivation is a global public health concern that affects “approximately half of the population on earth.”
The main effects of sleep deprivation include physical effects (sleepiness, fatigue, hypertension), cognitive impairment (deterioration of performance, attention and motivation; diminishment of mental concentration and intellectual capacity and increase of the likelihood of accidents at work and during driving) and mental health complications.
“Inadequate rest impairs the ability to think, to handle stress, to maintain a healthy immune system, and to moderate emotions,” a WHO report stated. “Maintained total sleep deprivation is fatal in some animal species.”
In Africa, for years, no study has simultaneously investigated sleep quality and its associations with eating disorders, body composition, and physical activity.
522 students
A new report just change that absence of data. The paper determines the prevalence of poor sleep and its associations with eating disorders, body composition, and physical activity among students at the University of Douala in Cameroon.
Published in IBRO Neuroscience Reports, the report found that poor sleep quality affected 73.7% of students, with significant links to eating disorder risks and body composition changes.
The cross-sectional study was conducted between October 2024 and March 2025 among 522 students. The team of researchers from the University of Douala and Yaounde, and the National Institute of Youth and Sports, took many variables into consideration.
Participants answered questions concerning their sociodemographic characteristics such as gender, age, and academic level. The scientists measured their height waist circumference, body mass index, waist to height ration, body weight, and body composition.
The students also responded to a questionnaire on their sleep quality (sleep onset latency, sleep duration, efficiency, quality, disturbances, medication, and daytime dysfunction), their eating habits and the level of their physical activity.
35.6% for the risk of eating disorders
The team found that the prevalence of poor sleep was 73.7%, and 35.6% for the risk of eating disorders with high prevalence in females (40%).
“This prevalence was significantly higher than that of different studies conducted among university students at a different period,” the researchers noted, adding that this prevalence was notably higher than that reported in several studies conducted among university students across different periods and regions.
They also discovered that the prevalence of poor sleep quality was also significantly higher in participants with risk of eating disorders compared to those not at risk (61.8% vs 38.2% ) regardless of gender.
In addition, students with poor sleep display significantly higher body mass index and body fat percentage than their peers with good sleep quality. In the overall study population, a one-unit increase in body mass index and fat mass was associated with a 23% and 8% higher risk of poor quality, respectively.
Moreover, in females, the likelihood of poor sleep was increased with increasing values of body mass index.
“However, multivariate analysis revealed that, in males', a high level of physical activity was protective against poor sleep, while in females', moderate and high levels of physical activity constituted risk factors of poor sleep,” the scientists wrote.
They explained that based on the multivariate analysis, a high level of physical activity emerges as a protective factor against poor sleep in males. “This finding is consistent with established evidence on the beneficial effects of regular physical activity on male sleep.”
Physical activity as risk factors for women
But at the same time, moderate and high physical activity levels emerged as risk factors for poor sleep quality in women.
“This result appears to contradict the generally beneficial effects of physical activity on sleep, but can be interpreted in light of sex-specific physiological mechanisms,” they highlighted.
For them, the Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA), the body’s primary hormone system that manages how people respond to physical and emotional stress, is modulated by female sex hormones.
And women appear to respond differently to chronic stress than men, displaying greater increases in cortisol levels under conditions of chronic stress. “In female students combining moderate-to-intense physical activity with high academic and psychosocial demands, chronic activation of the HPA axis may produce evening hypercortisolemia, which is detrimental to sleep onset and sleep architectural quality,” the researchers noted.
In addition, intense physical activity in women can induce a state of reduced energy availability, with consequent suppression of reproductive hormones and disruption of the menstrual cycle, directly impairing sleep quality, they added.
In conclusion, the team assured that their finding has important public health implications, as it underscores the need to improve sleep quality among students and to address its consequences for cognition and the prevention of eating disorders and related diseases among university students in an African context.
Josiane Kouagheu
Banner image: Lecture Hall at the University of Douala. Photo by Franckerictchameni via Wikimedia Commons.
