Introduction: Healthcare workers, including nurses, carry out shift work to provide patients with 24-hour services. Nurses provide continuous nursing care to hospitalised patients. However, shift work disrupts circadian rhythm, which has an effect on the quality of sleep, different hormones as well as metabolic processes. Purpose: The aim of this paper is to conduct a literature review in order to determine the connection between shift work among nurses and their body weight as well as interventions nurses could carry out to alleviate the impact of shift work on their body weight. Methods: An review of foreign (English) scientific and professional articles was conducted. The literature was searched on the Digital Library of the University of Ljubljana web portal (DiKUL) and the CINAHL and MEDLINE databases. Results: Our findings support the claims that night shift work is a risk factor for obesity and that insufficient amount of sleep results in increased weight gain and, consequently, in a higher body mass index. A connection between the quality of sleep and body mass index was determined. It was also found that only one night of disrupted sleep has an effect on energy consumption and increased metabolism, which encourages nurses to eat more frequently and have snacks with high calorific values. This results in metabolic disorders, leading to weight gain. Discussion and conclusion: Weight gain is caused by unhealthy food, excessive food dependency, resistance to insulin, some medicine, resistance to leptin, genetical predisposition and hormonal imbalance, and everything is influenced by our sleep patterns and night-time eating habits. Weight loss interventions should be carried out in a group, as in this way nurses are more motivated to achieve their goals and are able to provide support to one another. Such measures should be adopted by hospital management or even by the government, as nurses are a very important workforce in hospitals, where they should be provided with optimal working conditions.
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