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Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Short Sleep is linked to overweight condition and behavioral problems in kids

The duration of your Childs’ sleep can vary depending on the time of the day and year. But parents, please note - the less your kid does shut-eye, the more likely he or she is to become overweight and have frequent mood swings.

The team of international researchers has carried out a study and found that children who do not get enough nightly sleep are at risk of becoming obese as sleep restrictions leads to hormonal changes in the stomach as well as in fat cells that trigger increased appetite. “Sleep is important of health and well-being throughout life. Our results show a strong effect of short sleep duration on risk of obesity even when levels of day time activity re adjusted for.

“This effect was independent of physical activity or television watching. Attention to sleep in childhood my be an important strategy to reduce the obesity epidemic”. The researchers came to the conclusion after focusing on a group of nearly 600 children, all aged seven. The team assessed the shut-eye duration of the kids by actigraphy( a non-invasive method to study sleep-wake patterns and cardiac rhythms) at four stages of their young lives- at birth, at one year, at three-and-a-half year and at seven years.

A range of other measurement such as height, weight body mass index (BMI) and body fat levels were also taken for each participant,. A BMI of 2-\0 to 25 is considered normal, 25 to 30 overweight, and over 30 obese.

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