Children's Sleep Schedules & Obesity

Childhood Obesity

• According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2008 about 17 percent of kids between 2 and 19 were obese. That percentage is almost three times what it was in 1980, up to 12.5 million kids. However, the overall obesity rates for preschoolers is falling. In general, obesity is caused by too many calories and too little activity. This is impacted by environmental influences and behaviors, such as the wide availability of sugary drinks, common ads for junk foods, lack of physical education in many schools, increased portion sizes and too much time on media entertainment.

Sleep Schedule

• Some research shows that there may be a connection between obesity and the amount of sleep children get, though no direct cause has been found yet. For example, Stanford University published a study in 2004 that found overweight 9-year-olds were more likely to have overweight parents and less likely to get enough sleep. A 2005 study in the United Kingdom looked at obese 7-year-olds. At age 3, these children generally watched more than 8 hours of television per week and slept less than 10 1/2 hours each night. Harvard researchers tracked over 900 children from infancy to preschool. Young kids who got fewer than 12 hours of sleep as babies were more prone to being overweight.

Sleep Apnea

• Another serious sleep concern links childhood obesity to sleep apnea, which is irregular or shallow breathing. Too much body weight in the neck and chest interferes with consistent breaths, especially when lying down. Kids may actually stop breathing for several second. Apnea and obesity are also linked to high blood pressure, insulin and cholesterol problems, and abnormal blood clots. Children with apnea are sleepy during the day and snore at night. This becomes a cyclical problem, since poor sleep patterns are linked to weight gain.

Connections

• Poor sleep habits and obesity have several related factors, and all of these together may contribute to weight gain. The levels of hormones that affect hunger can go up and down with too little sleep. More hours awake mean more hours to eat, and those foods are often less healthy. People who are tired have less energy to exercise, and they may spend more time inactive, watching television. They also may have lower body temperatures, which can lead to inactivity.