Sleep-deprived toddlers at risk of obesity in school age

Medical Video: Kids and Sleep

Infants and toddlers who sleep less than 10 hours at night are at high risk of obesity as soon as they reach primary school age. The latest findings by a team of researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children also confirmed similar evidence from a number of previous studies.

"Our study found convincing evidence that the sleep duration of infants and toddlers less than the recommended amount is a strong risk factor for obesity," said Dr. Elsie Taveras, head of the Pediatric department at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children and chairman of the study. CBS News.

What is the content of the research?

This study processes data that is more comprehensive from the results of face-to-face interviews and continued questionnaires to mothers and children about children's sleep habits in each age period of 6 months to 7 years. The researcher also considered environmental factors and maternal lifestyle choices, measurements of child height and weight, as well as total body fat, abdominal fat, lean body mass, and waist and hip circumference of the child.

Night sleep deprivation is defined as the duration of sleep less than 12 hours throughout the night for children aged 6 months to 2 years; less than 10 hours a day for children aged 3-4 years; and less than 9 hours a day for children aged 5 to 7 years. Each child's sleep habits from the interviews of mothers are given a sleep score that covers each of these time periods - starting from 0 for children who suffer from chronic sleep deprivation to 13, the best score for the duration of sleep is ideal.

The researchers found that children with the lowest sleep scores had the largest body measurements, reflecting the characteristics of obesity and abnormal body fat deposits for children their age. This association is consistently found in all age categories, so researchers believe that the risk of childhood obesity will remain high and as severe at all ages.

Another study from the University of Washington published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found infants and toddlers to the age of 4 who lacked sleep at night, 80 percent more likely to have excess body fat in the next five years than other children who slept longer. Furthermore, even children who routinely lack sleep at night throughout the school day but manage to make up for a small portion of their sleep at the weekend are reported to remain at high risk of obesity - up to three to four times as much. What is the reason?

What does a child lack of sleep with obesity in the future?

Child health observers believe that lack of sleep plays an important role in the blooming of a child's waistline, because it disrupts the body's metabolism and endocrine system.

The condition of lack of sleep causes children to be trapped in a vicious circle where the lack of nighttime sleep causes fatigue during the day. Fatigue makes children easily hungry so they eat more, but are less interested in engaging in physical activity. This leads to a lack of burning of energy, which then leads to obesity, which leads to a return to poor sleep patterns.

Lack of sleep at night disrupts the hormones ghrelin and leptin (two hormones that regulate hunger and appetite) and the body's biological clock, aka circadian rhythm. When the body needs sleep, the body interprets it as hunger, causing the level of leptin to fall while ghrelin levels increase rapidly; this response triggers an overeating pattern and also instructs the body to maintain its fat stores. Then, the circadian clock of a body that is in disarray will disrupt the regulation of glucose and insulin levels. When these two hormones are chaotic, they are closely related to weight gain, heart disease, and diabetes.

The lack of sleep duration of children is also found to increase cortisol levels, a hormone which one of its functions is regulating the body's energy management; Increased cortisol levels have been associated with insulin resistance and higher BMI rates. Other pediatric studies also link poor sleep habits with behavioral problems and learning disabilities.

Then, how long should the child sleep at night?

"If a child has a tendency to obesity but has managed to get enough sleep, he is more likely to be protected from these adverse effects than if he did not sleep as much as needed," said Dr. David Gozal, head of the department of pediatrics at the University of Chicago in Illinois, quoted from ABC News.

Regardless of the weight category, the average child in a variety of studies had an eight-hour night's sleep duration during the week - far from the recommendation of 9-10 hours of sleep by the National Institutes of Health and other health groups. The CDC recommends babies aged 1 year to sleep 13-15 hours at night and toddlers aged 3-5 years need 11-13 hours of sleep a night.

Even more surprising, paying off a night's sleep debt with a nap does not seem to be a solution for children to avoid the risk of obesity. This is because napping and nighttime sleep serve different functions. Napping, for example, can help children suppress stress so that the focus will be sharper to learn and move throughout the day while night sleep involves biological, psychological, and recovery of more complex damage to the body's systems.

How do you make your child have enough sleep and quality?

Getting sleep is not only important for adults, but also critical for the well-being of children in their growth years. Taveras recommends a number of steps parents can take to help children get a good night's sleep:

Schedule a consistent sleep time; including when you start sleeping and getting up early
Limit consumption of caffeinated drinks (tea, soda, energy drinks, packaged fruit juices) at the end of the day
Limit the use and access of technology in a child's bedroom
Ensure a quiet, dark and relaxed sleeping environment; the temperature is not too hot or too cold
Make sure the bed is clean and comfortable, only used for sleeping, not for other activities (for example, reading, studying, playing laptops / mobile phones, listening to music, watching TV)
Invite children to do physical activity, but do not approach bedtime
Make sure the child's room is exposed to bright light when you wake up in the morning
Forbid children to stay up all night
Allow children to sleep more late on weekends, but don't wake up later than 2-3 hours outside the usual wake-up time

In addition to obesity, lack of sleep at night in the long term has been linked to dementia, heart disease, mental illness, and other chronic health conditions in adulthood.

READ ALSO: