Sleep Duration And Childhood Obesity Linked

Sleep Duration And Childhood Obesity Linked

Parents might want to take special note of this fact: according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, it has been stated that less sleep can increase a child's risk of being overweight or obese.

Reportedly, as was published in the February 2008 edition Obesity, the journal of The Obesity Society, their analysis of epidemiological studies found that with each additional hour of sleep, the risk of a child being overweight or obese dropped by 9 percent.

As Youfa Wang, MD, PhD, senior author of the study and associate professor with the Bloomberg School's Center for Human Nutrition aptly puts it: "Our analysis of the data shows a clear association between sleep duration and the risk for overweight or obesity in children. The risk declined with more sleep. Desirable sleep behavior may be an important low cost means for preventing childhood obesity and should be considered in future intervention studies. Our findings may also have important implications in societies where children do not have adequate sleep due to the pressure for academic excellence and where the prevalence of obesity is rising, such as in many East Asian countries."

Another noted expert, Xiaoli Chen, MD, PhD, the study's lead author and a former postdoctoral fellow at the Bloomberg School added that "The influence of sleep quality on obesity risk is another important area where future research is needed."

It is noteworthy of mention that for this study, Wang, Chen and colleague May A. Beydoun, also a postdoctoral fellow at the Bloomberg School, reviewed 17 published studies on sleep duration and childhood obesity and they analyzed 11 of them in their meta-analysis.

Reportedly, they all reached the conclusion that the recommended amount of daily sleep varied between studies analyzed and with children's age. Some research suggests that children under age 5 should sleep for 11 hours or more per day, children age 5 to 10 should sleep for 10 hours or more per day, and children over age 10 should sleep at least 9 hours per day.

Furthermore, the analysis produced the results that children with the shortest sleep duration had a 92 percent higher risk of being overweight or obese compared to children with longer sleep duration.

On a concluding note, it is noteworthy of mention that the association between increased sleep and reduced obesity risk was strongly associated with boys, but not in girls.

For The Latest Health News Keep it Locked Here at BodyHealthsoul.com