Children's Weight Gain May Be Due to Lack of Sleep

If you have a child with weight issues it may not all be the food they eat. It appears that lack of sleep seems to play a large part in weight gain than time spent watching television and lack of physical activity.

In 2004 a National Sleep Foundation survey, children in every age group are not getting nearly as much sleep, as they need. A child of preschool age requires 11 to 13 hours a day and should include an afternoon nap. Children of school age need 10 to 11 hours of sleep.

University of Laval in Quebec researchers looked at the lifestyles, habits, body mass index and weight size of 422 children between 5 and 10 years old. It showed 20 percent of boys and 24 percent of girls in the study were overweight. The data of the study was analyzed and showed that children who slept fewer than 10 hours a night were 3.5 times more likely to e overweight than those that slept more than 12 hours a night. Other factors may contribute to weight gain. They are time spent watching television, parental education, family income and regular physical activity. These though were found to have much lower impact on a child becoming overweight.

There are connections to lack of sleep and weight gain. Children that are up later at night have more opportunities to eat. In addition, a child that is lethargic due to lack of sleep will get less exercise. Even though a school schedule may dictate when a child must get up, the parents can set the bedtime hour.

Between 1960 and 2000, the obesity rates for the general population doubled and the average length of sleep has dropped an average of one to two hours. During sleep, the body regulates the levels of certain hormones that make us either hungry or full. Increasing both the length of time sleeping and your activity levels during the day is the healthy approach to keeping a healthy body weight.

There is also growing evidence that links sleep to children's cognitive and social functioning. Lack of sleep has always been associated with maladjustment in preschoolers and depression in adolescents. If the current trend of not getting enough sleep continues future generations of children looks grim. Obesity in America already has many other contributing factors. Increasing amounts of fast food places with "super-size portions and modern conveniences that lead to sedentary lifestyles such as television and computers also contribute to weight gain.