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You might think skipping an hour of sleep to hit the gym will result in weight loss.

But new research suggests changing your sleep routine can cause you to pile on the pounds, the Daily Mail reports.

Sleeping for even one hour less a day causes us to eat more than usual, according to a study.

And an extra hour - as unlikely as that may be for many of us - also has the same detrimental effect.

Researchers looked at figures from 342 teenagers and analysed their sleeping habits. On average, they slept about seven hours every night.

However, when the amount of time teenagers slept varied by just an hour - either less or more - they ate, on average, an extra 201 calories per day.

This is the equivalent of a bagel or two scoops of chocolate ice cream.

They also consumed about 6g more total fat – the same as a teaspoon of butter or a milk chocolate truffle - and 32g more carbohydrates the day after – the equivalent of 100g of spaghetti.

Disrupted sleep was also linked with a 60 per cent higher chance of night-time snacking on school nights, and 100 per cent higher chance of night-time munching on weekends.

Study lead author Fan He, of Penn State University College of Medicine, said: 'According to the data from our study, it's not how long you sleep that matters.

'It's about day-to-day variations in how long you sleep.'

Previous research has shown that teenagers who don't get enough sleep are at higher risk of obesity.

But most of those studies were based on self-reported sleep data.

The new study is the first to objectively measure the teenagers' sleeping pattern and physical activity for over a week in association with their eating habits in real life, instead of under laboratory conditions, Dr He said.