Children who sleep little more risk for overweight

Posted on March 15, 2009
Filed Under child |

Increasing concern

Over the past 30 years the prevalence of overweight among youth has increased dramatically, even among children of preschool age. Approximately one in four children from 2 to 5 years are overweight or at risk of developing it.

Problems of all kinds

Overweight in childhood has been associated with obesity and other health problems such as high cholesterol or elevated blood fat, hypertension, asthma and diabetes or blood sugar as well as increased occurrence of disease and death in later stages of life. So, if you examine the determinants of overweight may have information on preventive interventions to help prevent the complications of excess weight throughout life.

Affects sleep

In previous epidemiological studies have shown that the reduction in the number of hours of sleep is associated with weight gain, obesity, coronary artery disease of the heart and diabetes in adults.

The aim of this study was to examine the association over time of a reduction in the number of hours of sleep in children 6 months to 2 years with overweight at age 3 years.

The study

Nearly 1,000 children participated in this investigation in which their mothers were interviewed about the number of hours their children slept at the ages of 6 months, one year and two years, from which researchers calculated the average daily hours of sleep. By statistical analysis estimated the effects of sleep duration on body mass index (weight formula that relates the size through the equation weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared), the skin folds and overweight for age and sex at the age of 3 years.

The results showed that the average duration of sleep of these children was 12.3 hours. At the age of 3 years to 9% of children are overweight. After adjusting the results according to different clinical variables, the researchers found that children who slept less than 12 hours daily had a body mass index higher than the most likely to develop overweight.

In addition, television

They also noted that children who slept fewer hours spent more time watching television. In fact, indicate that the combination of low levels of sleep and high levels of television viewing were synergistic, ie, additive effect and were associated with scores of body mass index sharply higher and higher probability of being overweight.

Children who slept less than 12 hours a day and had 2 or more hours of television per day had a likelihood of developing overweight at age 3 years 17%.

During early childhood, at least 12 hours

The authors conclude that sleep less than 12 hours per day during early childhood appears to be a risk factor for developing overweight and increased fat in preschool children.

Suggest that parents should implement sleep hygiene techniques to improve the quality of it and, perhaps, increase its duration.

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