TUESDAY, April 8, (News Locale) - "The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more," so said Wilson Mizener. This adage appears to be doubly true in babies who get less than 12 hours of sleep each day. A new study finds that such babies are at risk of being overweight/obese pre-schoolers. 

Earlier studies have also linked inadequate sleep to childhood obesity, but this is the first study to link sleeplessness in babies to excess weight in pre-schoolers. A good night's sleep is always essential to start off the next day and this study says that good sleeping habits must be encouraged in infancy itself.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School analyzed the sleeping habits of 915 children at ages 6 months, 1 year and 2 years. The researchers used questionnaires to record the sleeping habits and also noted the height and weight of the infants.

Parents were asked about the television viewing habits of their children. Reporting in the latest issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the researchers said babies who slept less than 12 hours were twice as likely to be overweight by three years as compared to babies who got more sleep.

Overall 83 percent of the children were found to be overweight by the time they were three years old. Lead researcher Dr. Elsie M. Taveras also explained that less sleep and more TV was a deadly combination and led to obesity in no time at all.

A study in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics had said that preteens, who get fewer than 9 hours of sleep everyday, may be at the risk of gaining more weight.

Inadequate sleep affects the carbohydrate metabolism in children and caused impaired glucose tolerance. This in turn affects the secretion of hormones that regulate fat storage. All these factors may work in combination to increase weight in children.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends that children, adolescents, pre-teens and teens get the following hours of sleep everyday:

• Preschoolers: 11-13 hours
• Elementary school students: 10-12 hours
• Pre-teens: 9 - 11 hours
• Teens: 8 ½ - 9 hours

Overweight and obesity are an increasing problem among children worldwide. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), conducted during 2003-2004 had revealed an alarming increase in child obesity rates. Around 33.6 percent of children and adolescents were overweight as found by the survey as compared with 16 percent in 2002.

Sedentary lifestyle practices coupled with a shift in diet to junk foods are the main reason behind this explosion of overweight or obese children. Now researchers have also identified lack of sleep in infancy as being a contributory factor to childhood obesity.
 

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