Sleep and Obesity
Submitted by Boys and Schools Blog
It seems like most every parent I meet is tired and a little sleep-deprived. Not just those with newborns either–I sometimes wonder whether anyone gets enough sleep. Goodness knows I don’t. I’d like to blame it on the baby, but deep down I know that it comes from that urge to make the most of every minute you can once the kids are in bed. Come on, I can’t be the only one who ever stayed up until 3 am watching a bad trilogy of kickboxing movies featuring that guy from “Step by Step.” (Yes, the early ’90s sitcom with Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers. Yes, I’m talking about the non-Jean-Claude Van Damme entries in the Kickboxer series. Yes, I am quite embarrassed to be admitting all of this.)
Anyway, moving past my wretched taste in late-night TV, it turns out that there may be a correlation between insufficient sleep and childhood obesity. Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that more sleep lowered the risk of childhood obesity–children are about 9% less likely to be obese with every additional hour of sleep. Moreover, the risk of being overwieght when getting less sleep was more pronounced with boys than girls. Why aren’t kids getting enough sleep? Well, I think it probably depends on the kid. In some cases, it can be the stress and pressure of too many activities or the push for excellence (academic or otherwise). For others–well, I’m not sure how to be diplomatic about this, but you may have noticed that not every parent puts a whole lot of emphasis on making sure their kids get a full night of rest. Oh, and I should also mention that some parents have pointed out that the super-early school start times in some areas make it difficult for students to develop good sleep habits.
So what is enough sleep? Apparently it varies by age:
The recommended amount of daily sleep varied between studies analyzed and with children’s age. It is recommended that children under age 5 should sleep for 11 hours or more per day, children age 5 to10 should sleep for 10 hours or more per day, and children over age 10 should sleep at least 9 hours per day.
The results of the analysis showed 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. For children under age 5, shortest sleep duration meant less than 9 hours of sleep per day. For children ages 5 to 10 it meant less than 8 hours of sleep per day and less than 7 hours of sleep per day for children over 10. The association between increased sleep and reduced obesity risk was strongly associated with boys, but not in girls.
Of course, to me this totally justifies sending the kids to bed even earlier so that I can enjoy even more bad martial arts movies. I’m thinking I should move on to the kung-fu genre. Maybe catch up on my Chuck Norris knowledge. After all, when Chuck Norris does a push-up, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the earth down.
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