A novel study by researchers in New Zealand reveal that kids who get inadequate sleep at night are more prone to become overweight. The study suggests that more sleep in children was associated with lower weight that could have significant public health corollaries.
In order to analyze the effects of sleep on weight, researchers followed nearly two hundred and fifty children aged between three and seven years. The children were seen after every six months when their height, weight and body mass index were considered.
The habit of sleeping and levels of physical activity of the study subjects were also recorded at the age of three, four and five. The study showed that children who had less sleep in their earlier years of life were at higher risk of having higher BMI (Body Mass Index) by reaching the age of seven.
This association persisted even when other risk aspects such as gender and physical activity, were taken into account for their study. The suggested causes for the association may include merely having more time to eat and alterations to hormones that affect appetite. There was no impairment in depicting attention towards the association between diminished sleep and poor ill health, believe US experts.
According to Dr Ian Maconochie from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, children under the age of five generally take about eleven hours of sleep at night and in daytime naps. But twenty percent of children at this age suffer problems of sleeping.
It is already know that inadequate sleep has a significant impact on attention, memory, behavior and performance. This paper is a useful addition to their knowledge of sleep patterns in children, added Dr Maconochie. Further study should explore and authenticate new behavioral non-drug based, methods to prolong sleeping time in children and adults, explained Prof Francesco Cappuccio and Michelle Miller from the University of Warwick.
They added that in meantime it would do no harm to advise people that a continued curtailment of sleeping time might contribute to long-term ill health in adults and children. The study was published in the BMJ website.