Relation between Obesity and sleeping
October 25, 2006
CanWest News Services reported that British researcher found the relation between the rising obesity rates and the reasons behind the children were sleeping less. Dr. Shahrad Taheri who is a lecturer in medicine at the University of Bristol said “It could be that sleep is affecting both sides of the energy imbalance equation.” He also added when the children do not sleep enough it misbalance the hormones and they eat more and do less exercise. It might take only two or three nights without proper sleep to affect the profound effects on metabolic hormones.
He said “13 major studies now link excessive weight gain with reduced hours of sleep” at the time of writing Archives of disease in Childhood. One study told that 6 and 7 year old children who sleep less than eight hours were nearly three times fat as compare to the children who sleep more than 10 hours. But another study told that 12 to 16 year old children found 40 percent stating that they wake up tried.
Lecturer Taheri said “Parents are unaware of this because adults are ignoring their own sleep [needs] and we're just extending that to our kids”. For collecting all problems he added proliferation of children’s gadget distractions that keep them awake. According to Taheri these gadgets have no place in child’s bedroom.
He said “I probably can’t say that children need X hours of sleep. But what we can do to prevent barriers to sleep, such as poor bedtime routines, television in bedrooms, CD players, computers and the use of mobile phones”. According to him parents need to establish a strict bedtime routine for their children.
According to the HealthDay News Dr. Robert Daniel Vorona, an associate professor of internal medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, pointed out the Taheri’s research and told that this research does not establish a perfect relation between the lack of sleep and obesity and he also said “Even if sleep loss is much less important than caloric intake and lack of exercise in causing the epidemic of obesity, it still makes sense for physicians to encourage children and adults alike to obtain sufficient sleep”.
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