Headline on getting a flat belly while you sleep is misleading

“Get a Flat Belly While You Sleep.” The headline jumped out at me from the cover Health magazine, the July-August issue, when I was in the library last week.

I wanted to know more. Years ago, when sleep learning products were advertised, I was intrigued. I wanted to learn a foreign language by listening to tapes as I slept. The advertisements were withdrawn from the market when it was found that the theory didn't work.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to read the article on belly fat and sleep because someone had ripped that page from the magazine. And I wasn’t able to locate the article on Health.com, the magazine’s Web site.

I did find the magazine at another library, but I was disappointed in what I learned.

The headline for the short article inside the magazine was “Can You Sleep Off the Pounds?”

The article said it’s difficult to lose weight if you only getting five to six hours of sleep a night. Too much sleep doesn't help either.

Researchers from Laval University in Quebec offered this information:

• Short sleepers (five to six hours): 27 percent more likely to become obese; 124 percent gained more body fat; 35 percent more likely to gain 11 pounds than just rights sleepers.

• Just right sleepers (seven to eight hours).

• Long sleepers (nine to 10 hours): 21 percent more likely to become obese; 94 percent gained more body fat; 25 percent more likely to gain 11 pounds than just right sleepers.

So, I guess you could say that you might keep a flat stomach if you didn’t gain the 11 pounds that the short and long sleepers did but that just right sleeper didn't.

However, it’s a stretch.