Sleep Disorders: Do They Cause Obesity in Children?

Not enough sleep may lead to weight gain for children, according to US scientists. Previously, children’s lack of sleep was found to cause bad school performance or emotional problems, but a recent study connects it to becoming overweight.

Researchers collected data from over 2,000 children with ages between three and eighteen. The results are based on the diaries kept by parents or children themselves where they kept a record of bedtime, hours of sleep, or time of waking up.

An extra hour of sleep may help young children by reducing the risk of becoming overweight from thirty-six to thirty percent. For older children, an extra hour of sleep reduces the risk from thirty-four to thirty percent, according to the study’s lead author, Emily Snell.

The results were not influenced gender, ethnicity, income, or race. They showed that late bedtime for children with ages from three to eight are strongly connected to weight gain. Unlike the other children, those with ages between eight and thirteen are more predisposed to weight gain if they wake up too early.

Children with ages of five to twelve should sleep ten to eleven hours per night while teenagers need to have nine hours of sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation. The study concluded that later wake up times and earlier bedtimes are a low-cost strategy to help reduce the weight problems for children, said Snell.

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