To our knowledge, this is the first study to show the association between different forms of PA, SB and insulin levels in short sleepers, and we further analyzed this association based on characteristics of the large included population, conducted a sensitivity analysis in participants’ diabetes mellitus, and explored the effect of PA and different levels of lipid indices (LDL-C, HDL-C, FG, TC and TG). Here, INS is linked to diabetes mellitus.