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

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

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A new study has found a strong link between family routines and the onset of childhood obesity. Researchers from Ohio State University say it's the first time three specific routines were assessed together.

According to a Feb. 8 ScienceDaily article, "in a large sample of the U.S. population, the study showed that 4-year-olds living in homes with all three routines had an almost 40 percent lower prevalence of obesity than did children living in homes that practiced none of these routines."

The following three factors were associated with a lower prevalence of childhood obesity:

• Eating dinner as a family
• Getting an adequate amount of sleep
• Limiting TV viewing time.
  

Researchers also pointed out, however, that the study doesn't confirm whether the actions themselves aid in preventing obesity, or if they indicate the presence of other preventative factors.

Labels: causes of childhood obesity, prevention, sleep, screen_time, family meals

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Childhood obesity has often been associated with the failure of young people to get up and get active -- but a new study from China reports that sleeping in on weekends and holidays may actually help young people stay slim..

• Researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong studied more than 5,000 children ages five to 15 years old
• The researchers discovered that overweight children tended to get less weekend and holiday sleep than did those at normal weight.
• The overweight children in the study also spent more time doing homework and watching television, which may also be risk factors for being overweight.
• Previous studies have linked irregular sleep/wake schedules and insufficient sleep with being overweight.

What is unique about this study is that it is the first to show that extending sleep on weekends may help with avoiding weight gain, said Kristin Knutson, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

The study by Professor Yun Kwok Wing is published in the journal Pediatrics.

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Recent studies have linked child and teen obesity to sleep problems, reduced quality of life, and higher rates of breathing complications during surgeries. One study from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia found that obese children between the ages of 8 and 12 had "poorer scores for sleep onset delay, sleep-disordered breathing, sleep duration, and daytime sleepiness, compared to children who were overweight or healthy weight."

The same obese children consistently reported lower overall scores for psychosocial factors and total quality of life. Kelly Ann Davis, lead researcher, commented, "In this study, sleep and weight each contributed unique variance for quality of life scores, thus indicating the need to evaluate daytime functioning in children with both obesity and sleep problems."

Research has shown that obesity increases a child's risk of developing OSA, or obstructive sleep apnea. This sleep-related breathing disorder actually causes the child to stop breathing for periods of time while sleeping. Although OSA mainly disrupts sleep, it is serious and can be fatal if left untreated.

A second study, released in 2008 by the University of Michigan Healthy System, found a significant correlation between childhood obesity and breathing complications during surgery. Obese children were more likely to experience "difficult mask ventilation, airway obstruction, major oxygen desaturation (a decrease in oxygen in the patient's blood), and other airway problems."

Labels: sleep, side-effects, quality_of_life

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Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found a strong link between sleep duration and childhood obesity.

"For the study, Wang, Chen and colleague May A. Beydoun, also a postdoctoral fellow at the Bloomberg School, reviewed 17 published studies on sleep duration and childhood obesity... 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."

Sleep recommendations varied between studies, but researchers settled on recommendations of 11 hours for children under 5, 10 hours for children 5 to 10, and 9 hours for children 10 or older. Read more at MediLexicon.com.

Learn about junk sleep and how insomnia is common among teens at ByParents-forParents.com.

Labels: sleep, healthy_living, lifestyle

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Researchers at the University of Michigan have found a surprising correlation between sleep and weight. The study looked at the weight, height and sleep patterns of 785 children in 10 U.S. cities.

"Of the children who slept 10-12 hours each night at age eight, about 12% were obese by 11, compared to 22% of those who slept less than nine hours."

The study also found that, in third graders, every additional hour of sleep resulted in a 40% drop in their chance of becoming obese. Though the results of the study were undeniable, researchers are unsure why sleep plays such a profound role in weight gain among children.

Labels: causes of childhood obesity, sleep

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Teens with sleep apnea are more likely to be overweight and at risk for heart attacks, strokes and diabetes, according to a new study by Case Western University. Sleep apnea is a breathing disorder in which soft tissues in the throat collapse temporarily during sleep.

Dr. Susan Redline and her colleagues studied 270 teenagers and found that those with sleep apnea were six and a half times more likely to have metabolic syndrome, a condition liked with being overweight. A person has the syndrome if he or she has three of the following: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, high triglycerides and low levels of "good" cholesterol.

This study suggests that sleep apnea may contribute to metabolic syndrome, because "sleep stress" may lead to elevated blood sugar and blood pressure levels. This study appears in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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Labels: sleep, stress, health_factors

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Health officials are now saying than crankiness isn't the only thing to worry about if your child doesn't get enough sleep. An ongoing study at Yale is researching the connection between sleep, obesity, and diabetes.

Dr. Sumit Bhargava, of the Yale Pediatric Sleep Lab is studying "whether obese children who have obstructive sleep apnea are more likely to become diabetic."

Read more online.

Labels: research, sleep, diabetes

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A recent study conducted by Northwestern University finds that children who don't get enough sleep are at a higher risk of being overweight.

"A study followed 2,000 kids for five years, and found that kids who get just one extra hour of sleep are four to 6% less likely to be overweight. They also found that the kids who were getting more sleep overall weighed less at the end of the five year study."

Another reason to get your kids to bed early. Read more online.

Labels: research, causes of childhood obesity, sleep

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Teenage boys who get insufficient sleep are at risk of becoming overweight or obese, according to a new study from Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute.

• Dr. Leslie Lytle studied 723 teenagers in terms of their sleep habits, heights and weights, risk for depression, physical activity levels, and socio-economic backgrounds.
• Boys who got fewer than eight and a half to nine hours of sleep were at higher risk for overweight and obesity, but there was little association between weight and sleep for girls.

"Maybe girls are better equipped to deal with environmental stress," said Dr. Lytle. "They just biologically respond differently."

This study was presented at a meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.
 

Labels: sleep, boys, teenagers

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