Is my phone making me fat?

Yes, extensive smartphone use and addiction are strongly associated with an increased risk of being overweight and obese.

This link is not a direct cause-and-effect from the device itself but results from the behavioral and physiological changes associated with problematic use.

Key factors that link smartphone use to weight gain include:

• Sedentary Lifestyle: Prolonged smartphone use is a sedentary activity that displaces time that would otherwise be spent on physical activity. This creates an imbalance between energy consumed and energy expended, leading to weight gain over time.
• Mindless Eating and Poor Diet: Using your smartphone while eating can distract you from the process, interfering with your body’s natural hunger and fullness signals (satiety). This “mindless eating” often leads to consuming more calories and larger portions. People using phones excessively also tend to consume more junk food, sugary drinks, and fast food, and skip healthier meals like breakfast.
• Sleep Disruption: The blue light emitted by smartphone screens, especially when used at night, can suppress melatonin production and disrupt your natural sleep-wake cycle (circadian rhythm). Poor and insufficient sleep disrupts the balance of appetite-regulating hormones (increasing ghrelin, the hunger hormone, and decreasing leptin, the satiety hormone), leading to increased cravings and overeating.
• Stress and Emotional Eating: Constant connectivity and exposure to social media or news can increase stress and anxiety levels, leading to elevated cortisol (stress hormone) levels. High stress often triggers emotional eating or comfort eating of unhealthy foods, which contributes to fat storage, particularly in the abdominal area.

In summary, the correlation between smartphone addiction and weight gain is multi-faceted, involving a combination of physical inactivity, unhealthy eating habits, and disrupted sleep patterns and metabolism.