Childhood Obesity - Do you have an overweight child? We offer tips to help your child lose weight and get fit!

The My Overweight Child blog will help you keep informed about the latest research, findings, and resources available to parents of overweight or obese kids. There are many knowledgeable people working on the increasingly dire problem of childhood obesity - and we want to give parents a place where they can check in regularly to see the latest studies and tips available to help you help your child lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

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Friday, March 12, 2010

Too Much, Too Little Sleep Both Associated with Abdominal Fat Gain

A new study has associated sleep problems with unhealthy weight gain.

People who sleep either too much or too little are in danger of gaining abdominal fat, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
  • Dr. Kristin Hairston and her colleagues studied 332 African-American and 775 Hispanic-American adults over the age of 18 years old. The researchers asked about their subjects' sleep, diet, exercise, and other lifestyle habits, and then followed up with them five years later.
  • Study participants who slept five hours or less a night had a greater accumulation of abdominal fat, and the same was true for those who slept five hours or less.
  • People who got less than average sleep had a 32 percent gain in visceral fat and those who slept eight or more hours a night gained 22 percent.
  • Study subjects who slept six or seven hours a night, which is the average, averaged a 13 percent gain.
Dr. Hairston was unsure why sleep duration might affect fat gain, but she said that among the group that sleeps too few hours, it may be related to becoming overtired and thus being unable to exercise. Among that group that sleeps more than eight hours a night, she theorized that they may tend to gain fat because they are too inactive.

Dr. Hairston also said that she believes that sleep is a factor that changes the levels of appetite-regulating hormones.

The study appeared in the journal Sleep.

Labels: weight_gain, sleep

Posted By: Aspen/CRC